Alan McKernan: Contrasting Light
Senate House Exhibition Hall,
University of Liverpool
1 February - 16 March 2001
Enter a new and unfamiliar landscape in this exhibition of photographs of Formby and the Dock Road area by local artist, Alan McKernan. There will be a selection of 36 black and white photos from two recent series called 'Last Light' made at Formby and 'Continuum of Change' taken around the Dock Road.
Laying aside the high-tech digital equipment now available to photographers Alan McKernan decided to show what could be done with the simpler medium of camera, black and white film and daylight. He wanted to demonstrate to himself, and his students at Liverpool's Community College, the continuing potential of traditional camera technology to surprise and please the eye.
Visiting the woods and dunes at Formby, Alan McKernan made a series of photographs often taken in the last light of day. 'The familiar landscape emerged re-drawn in the ever-changing light. The pinewoods and marram grass became reminiscent of equatorial forests, savannah grasslands and dry deserts.' The resulting images in the 'Last Light' series are of unusual and haunting beauty; creating connections with a distant past and echoes of a fairy-tale world.
A stark contrast appears in Alan McKernan's second series of photos, which are of the Dock Road area, actually Regent Road. The grid-like pattern of brick and stone are deeply etched in these strongly urban images. Yet what attracted Alan McKernan to the subject was the 'Continuum of Change' between the man-made structures and the working of natural forces. As the disused warehouses of the Dock Road area age and decay, plants have begun to reclaim the buildings. 'This flourishing of nature symbolises man's transient impact; the apparently random distribution of the plant forms is in contrast to man's attempts to bring order and structure to the landscape'.
The 'Contrasting Light' of the two series are linked by this exploration of the forces of nature and by a common theme of light: 'its ephemeral effects sculpt and re-present the landscape'.
Ann Compton, Curator, University of Liverpool Art Collections
Senate House Exhibition Hall
University of Liverpool
Oxford Street, Liverpool L69 7WY
www.liv.ac.uk
