Shelley Nott
Based in East Suffolk, Shelley’s growing reputation for her still life photographs comes from her interpretation of the traditional genre but incorporating modern day technology.
Using window light, each of her photographs can take many hours (or even days) to create. The natural light gives them a greater depth and exceptional colour. Shelley says “I only use the computer to do what I would have done in the darkroom when I used film. So what the viewer sees is a carefully constructed photograph with window light being harnessed to enhance the subject, often with the symbolism of the Dutch Masters. Although I now use digital photography I bring the practice and ethos I used when behind a large format film camera”.
Her practice is the fruit of her continuing research and development, which has taken her, so far, to Holland, Denmark and, of course, London.
Collectors of her work span the globe often mixing her photographs with still life paintings.
A Still Life of Flowers in a Silver Vase
In the 17th Century the Dutch Masters painted spectacular floral arrangements, which would include flowers that were never in season at the same time. It necessitated a painstaking process of creating small studies of the flowers as they bloomed with the final composition being painted when all these had been completed. Ambrosius Bosschaert the Elder (1573-1621) was a supreme exponent of this genre, with elaborate arrangements often being painted on copper.
This picture is an homage to Bosschaert.
The piece took more than 15 months to capture its elements. Each component was photographed independently, starting with the snowdrops in February 2015 and ending with the snail in May 2016. Then the photograph of each flower was placed in the arrangement creating a bouquet, which could never actually exist in reality. Every photograph was planned in great detail ensuring the size of each flower was accurate in relation to the others and the vase that held it, with each element requiring many hours’ work. The multiple shoots and the extensive editing resulted in over 180 hours being dedicated to it. What you see here is its latest incarnation.
As is traditional the floral arrangement is place in an alcove or window, with a distant landscape behind. Placing this arrangement from a Suffolk garden in its geographical location, the viewer can see Orford lighthouse in the distance. The lighthouse, an iconic landmark of the Suffolk coastline for more than two hundred years, has recently been demolished as it was in imminent danger of being washed away due to rising sea levels and erosion of the Suffolk coast.
This piece while being influenced by the work of a seventeenth century artist is very much an image of today with a message of coastal erosion and climate change.
Printed using archive quality inks on framed aluminium dibond.
