Fay Godwin

I don't want to make this video into a full-scale illustrated biography of Fay Godwin apart from anything else I'm probably too lazy for that but I did want to share some of her remarkable photographs with you together with some biographical context it's possible you may not have heard of a Godwin she is very well known and loved within the British photographic community but I suspect not too well known in the rest of the world for the simple reason that she unlike southern male counterparts was not interested in world domination or in securing a global career men seem to want to conquer the world that Godwin's ambitions were more local and much more humane and all the better for it after I have waited your appetite with this video I hope you'll want to do your own research on it and I'll leave some links and references in the notes below if she is not as well-known as perhaps she should be in the rest of the world maybe it's because I SIA certainly has a quintessentially British artist her work rooted in the British landscape its history and psyche which is rather ironic because in fact she was born in Germany to an American mother and spent most of her childhood abroad whenever I see Godwin's work particularly the earlier images I can't help but make a connection with British artists such as Paul Nash and Edward Barra Harry Greb Alice Constable of Peter Mannion and writers and poets like Ted Hughes John Clare Thomas Hardy Tennyson and indeed she produced a number of books in collaboration with such notable writers as Ted shoes John Fowles and Alan cielito she also produced some acclaimed portraits of British writers you but it is a landscape work for which she is best known and I tend to think of it in three groups the first is her earlier landscapes which are more in line with the traditional view of landscape photography that is of beautiful views and nature in all its glory the second is the more politically engaged landscape series of images and thirdly the more intimate everyday scenes of people in the sociological context of their environment but all of them are characterized by Godwin's superb eye for composition and her full engagement emotionally and intellectually with the subject before if there is a secret to producing a serious body of good work it's this wholehearted engagement with your subject whatever it is a passion an obsession is probably a better word an obsession I don't think you necessarily have to like your subject but to have an obsession suggests that there is something you have to express you have to release almost as a way of keeping your own sanity being an artist is not necessarily being a happy optimistic creative individual in fact very often artists can be the opposite of that but there needs to be something you have to explore to excavate and express I wonder how many photographers nevermind ordinary hikers how many photographers would have seen this shot the angle of the standing stone there echoing that of the dry stone wall climbing up the mounting and the end of the wall as it comes down and nearly touches the standing stone the whole thing forming a kind of a Zed shape and just the right proportion of sky to land to it's magnificent image you put most on a beach at sunset and their eyes will be firmly fixed to the horizon and their ten stop filters will be firmly fixed to their lenses so eager are they to produce yet another sunset image but here Fay Godwin does something far more interesting and of course far more difficult because it takes imagination this is another scene I think most of us would walk straight past but Godwin is able to see the drama in this shot the sense of scale these two huge rocks sandwich Inge these tiny delicate little flowers and weeds growing between them the sense of the sense of drama and danger there is quite remarkable I regard this photograph as a family portrait shot and I hope you can see why the ability to see interest or beauty where others see only ugliness is a great gift and nine Faye Godwin was asked to become president of the Ramblers Association of Great Britain and being a great Walker and lover of the land and its history she accepted and this marked a notable turn in her work throughout the 1980s Britain was governed by neoliberal corporatist money orientated right-wing government led by Margaret Thatcher traditional industry was left to flounder and die home communities were left without employment or direction and it was basically a deeply divided unsettled and volatile Society in fact Margaret Thatcher famously said there was no such thing as society which I guess tells you all you need to know about her Godwin's landscape of this time reveals this destruction of society this denigration of community and the erasure of hope on her walks and rambles she couldn't help but notice the effect of rabid capitalism that devoured everything in its path ancient walkways and pedestrian right-of-ways that had been there for centuries were closed privatized or simply disappeared altogether notice the Sheep popping its head up above the wall on the right hand side there but whether we're talking about the fray Godwin who gives us the Orthodox or the more orthodox beautiful images of landscape or these pictures of a landscape under threat from government industry and military and other powerful vested interests there is always a deep sense of place and a poetry of poetry of space it is the reason her work is not just beautiful on aesthetic terms but powerful and commanding in moral terms as well and although some of these photos are 30 years old it remains relevant and urgent work in fact more urgent and relevant as we understand better today the effect of global warming and short-sighted economic return at the risk of stereotyping I will say that there is an aspect of Godwin's work which is poignant ly feminine as a wife and mother she was concerned with the future for her children and of the planet generally there is a deep nurturing quality to Godwin's later work on a human level on an everyday level a lot of male photographers go for the monumental and the timeless and whereas Godwin could certainly do that and do it brilliantly she became more interested in the local in the specific how do we live what are we doing to our environment how do we want to be governed what kind of world do we wish our children and grandchildren to grow up in I said earlier on that the 1980s in Britain was a divided and troubled country and so it is again today and I hope that somewhere out there there are photographers like Faye Godwin who are recording documenting what is being lost and what there is still to be saved

Channel: Still Life - Art and the photographic image

Views: 8,452

Rating: 4.905724 out of 5

Keywords: photography, art, image, artists, photographers, contemporary art, Fay Godwin, Fay Godwin photography, Godwin landscapes, Landscape photography, black and white landscapes, Fay Godwin landscapes, the land, our forbidden land, on the edge of the land, British photographers, British photography, Godwin, 1980s photography, Godwin Fay, Godwin landscape, Godwin portraits, portrait photography, Justin Jones

Id: YSpq3h7M1AM

Length: 12min 5sec (725 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 01 2017