July 2005, Margot Bristow
Margot explained that she has developed, since the year 2000, a technique of using her own digital images to create a surrealistic painterly print of the original image, a mixture of real and unreal, via a process of incubation, inspiration and resolution. The medium on which the work is presented is as important as the image. She experiments with different papers, their textures and weights, each with its own personality, to produce 'painted photographs'. At this point I admitted defeat and allowed Margot to make her own statement. 'I see a landscape as a moment in time, constantly changing, yet fixed in an historical time frame. These photographic images have been creatively manipulated to enhance both a sense of timelessness and the viewer's ability to perceive.
Photography in this form challenges the uniqueness of a work of art and proposes a paradox in recognising the familiar while encouraging a personal engagement and response in the viewer. As a result the boundaries of the images become ambiguous, both in the perception of the scene and the representation of the particular environment. My intention is that the viewer is then able to experience how vulnerable the landscape can be to manipulation and change.' It is always best to let the artists describe their own work.
In addition to producing these striking works Margot also teaches painting and drawing and trained as an art therapist and whilst bringing up her family worked with vulnerable young people. Although she started painting and drawing in the 1960s she took a break and on returning to it obtained an MA in Fine Arts in 2001. Her work has been exhibited recently at the Royal Opera House, Convent Garden, Brighton University and The Old Truman Brewery, London. She has works in private collections in Spain, France, Australia, Canada, USA, Korea and London. Margot can be contacted at margot60ma@aol.com