The Artist Questionnaire / № 2 / Michael Faint
How would you describe the artwork that you make?
Photography.
Why do you make the work that you make?
I like photographs. I especially like black and white photographs. I enjoy the process of taking them and the thinking behind their creation.
Photographs are not reality, just a version of reality. Every time I put my camera to my eye and turn a dial, the view changes, reality is altered. This fascinates me and is the root of my continued image-making.
Can you tell us about your creative process? What are the most significant practical, material, intellectual, and/or emotional processes that drive your practice?
My photography is very responsive. I don’t plan much. I’ll visit a location and react to it on that day, see what I have been given, have a walk about and begin to think about what I can photograph. If I know I have longer on site I’ll slow this process down, let go of the camera, and look more. If I know the site well, this process of orientation may only take a few moments. I generally photograph in black and white and in square format, so the camera will be set up for this. Keeping with my preferred settings means I don’t have to think about the camera too much, it remains a simple tool to allow me to take pictures.
My preoccupation when growing up was birds. Over time I began to focus more on what is referred to as ‘Patch Birding’: continued and repeated visits to the same place/patch over days, weeks, seasons and years, filling notebooks with details and incidental information. This repetition brings a deeper understanding of a place, seasonal changes, habitat, wildlife populations, and it leads to an appreciation of subtle changes and nuances through time. This idea of ‘patch’ has stayed with me, and as I changed jobs and locations I would always look to carve out a new space for myself within walking distance of my base whether this was by the riversides of West London or a North Sea beachfront.
These notions feed my photography to this day. For me there are clear creative benefits to continuing to visit the same place again, and again, and again. Repetition is a constant creative tool for me and a means to discovery that I don’t feel can be fully realised on one visit. I also have preferred presets for the image processing in Lightroom, another form of repetition in a way, and I use these so often that I can visualise the finished image and print when taking photographs. There is also an ongoing series of photographs on the shores of the Outer Hebrides. For these, I take a photograph the same way with the same equipment at each site and again use one of my presets to produce the finished image. As far as possible I have removed myself from the image production and by repetition of processes allowed the form and character of the location to come through to the finished photograph.
The ideas around the exploration of a single site have been the ideal grounding for personal long-form projects and especially for a collaboration that I have been working on for the last eighteen months or so with the poet and academic Steve Ely. Steve is a regular visitor to Uist and has written a long-form modernist poem, Orasaigh. It is based on and around the small island of Orasaigh which lies off the Atlantic coast of South Uist. He invited me to produce images that interpret the poem with the aim of producing a book. The closest comparison that we know of is Remains of Elmet by Ted Hughes and Faye Godwin. That book was a series of short poems by Hughes inspired by a series of photographs from Godwin. Orasaigh is similar but very distinct from this and we consider the book a unique and exciting prospect. From the perspective of creating photographs, this collaboration has changed the way that I have had to make the images. I had been to Orasaigh a few times before Steve contacted me, and it was initially interesting to find similar points of interest that we had noticed independently. Since then, I have had to produce pictures from two perspectives, visualising the imagery that is voiced in the poem but also bringing my interpretation of the poem and my place in the landscape to the image-making. The themes of the poem roam widely in geography, time and subject-matter and I often find myself finding opportunities to photograph themes or phrases from the poem when I least expect it and when a long way from Orasaigh, physically or intentionally. The challenge of producing this work has been incredibly rewarding and will continue into next year.
Orasaigh will be published by Broken Sleep Books in 2024. Selected images and text form an exhibition at Taigh Chearsabhagh in Lochmaddy which is open until January 26th. Further exhibitions are planned for 2024 and beyond.
Whereabouts in the world are you? Or if applicable, where has your work taken you? In what ways does geographical location affect or inflect your practice?
I live on the island of South Uist in the Outer Hebrides. The landscape is a combination of Lewisian gneiss, peat bogs, lochs, machair, and sandy beaches that stretch for miles along the Atlantic coast. My practice is almost wholly a visualisation and interpretation of this landscape.
Can you say something about the circumstances and context in which you make your artwork? To what degree is your practice integrated with the other aspects of your life?
It is difficult to separate my photography from other aspects of my life. My subject matter (the light and landscape of Uist — my ‘patch’) is around me all the time. Some days I can see eagles while sitting on the sofa and if the weather is clear I can look out of the window and stare across The Minch to the Small Isles. I can’t go to the shop without being surrounded by beauty. My subject matter literally surrounds me all the time and I am effectively immersed in it. This is not a complaint.
This immersion, whilst constant, doesn’t mean that I am out with a camera all the time. However, what it does do is allow me to watch the light, the changes in the weather, and ponder future locations. I think continuously about light and the creation of photographs, but have to be patient and take my opportunities when I can.
My images are also used for the branding at SkyDancer Coffee, a company I run with my wife in Lochboisdale. I have a gallery section within the café space, so there is a nice synergy with our location and the product which is quite effective.
How would you describe the relationship between your work and the larger culture in which you live?
Living on an island like Uist and producing meaningful photography can’t be done without at least indirect reference to the history and culture of the place, contemporary or otherwise.
I’ve been lucky to have received some commissions for Uist focussed projects. The most significant of these was for the new building at Cnoc Soilleir in Daliburgh (a commission for Ceòlas Uibhist and the Bord na Gàidhlig). I am also involved in ongoing work with the award winning Uist Unearthed archaeology project. Wholly different commissions but very much Uist-centred.
The Cnoc Soillier commission was to follow the construction of a new centre for Gaelic culture, with the end goal being a series of images to be exhibited alongside commissioned poetry from Niall Campbell. I was given unfettered access to the construction site from almost the beginning of the build and total creative freedom. The bulk of exhibition photographs were produced by using the construction materials of the build to create images that interpreted a performance rooted in Gaelic culture with its historical use of music, dance and voice within the Uist landscape. It was a thoroughly rewarding and enjoyable experience. Two of the pictures still hang in the reception area of Cnoc Soilleir while the rest of the work is on show in Carloway on the Isle of Lewis.
How do you feel about putting your artwork out into the world and it being seen by others? Do the responses of audiences to your work matter to you?
I stick to the principal of ‘show, don’t tell’. Getting prints on walls is the best way to find out what other people think of the photographs. I’m always interested in the responses from others; what they take from an image that I might not. The most interesting conversations have come from this. These interactions are much less frequent but are substantially more meaningful and engaging than a daily collection of online likes.
How would you describe the relationship of your practice to money and commerce and exchange? Do you sell your work? Have you received funding for your work? Does the issue of commerce affect the nature of the work itself?
I sell prints regularly, and receive commercial and artistic commissions. I’m grateful for every sale and every commission but don’t enjoy the necessary evil that is promotions and the associated social media etc..
Funding is difficult to secure but it would mean that more time was freed up to concentrate on the work. I know that funding would have changed the look of at least one recent exhibition. Nevertheless, funding doesn’t affect my work per se but it would free up time and allow me to work on more projects over a shorter period of time.
On a related note, what are your thoughts and/or feelings about the commercial and institutional ‘art world’? To what extent are you involved with it, or would you like to be?
I expect that at least one current project may dip a toe into the ‘art world’ next year with book publications, while wider aspects of the project are under consideration by the BBC and various galleries around the country. Ask me this this question again in a year I guess!
Links:
Website: ansolasoir.com
Orasaigh exhibition at Taigh Chearsabhagh Museum & Arts Centre
Twitter: @AnSolasOir
