One day back in 2009 whilst living in Spain, I came across a chair ingeniously arranged on a sloped garden path that managed to keep the seat horizontal. I was compelled by it. Why wasn’t it on flat ground without the need of the intricacies of the wooden planks to prop it up? Who had created it? Why did they put it in such an awkward place? Had it not been for such intent it was almost comedic. I needed to photographically document it, unaware as I did so that this was to be the beginning of a new relationship I’d have with chairs and a whole new series I’d go on to create. Not just any chair would meet the grade, it wasn’t like I was going around photographing every one that I came across. It was just the chairs that had an intangible, intrinsic value, a certain character to them, a certain presence held in their negative space. Sometimes I would think of who might have sat there, a quick thought, not often dwelled upon. Sometimes I’d be more interested in the composition, the chair’s relationship to its surroundings, the colours, the type of chair. Overall there always seemed to be something very natural and relaxed about their placement, a calm, as if they were meant to be exactly where they were, at home.
In 2023 I started working with a creative mentor who’s suddenly walked into my life, funny how the universe works, and together we would work on removing the blocks to my artistic practice. In conversation one day the chairs popped up.
‘What was the connection that you felt with them?’ she asked. ‘What was drawing you to them?’
I felt stumped.
I could tell her all of the aforementioned but there was something missing, something greater that was beyond my comprehension. I later dug out my external hard drive and scrambled around in folders within folders on a quest to gather all of the images. I needed to get them printed out, stuck up on the wall and sit with them, live with them, let them speak to me.
They remained silent.
One day soon after, following my instincts I drove out to the beach. It just felt like what I needed to do. I didn’t know why, and I didn’t need to, I just knew I needed to go. Looking for specific jetsam it won’t appear, I told myself, it will only take you by surprise when you’re not looking.
Stop looking.
Just be, in this most tranquil of calm environments and see what arises. I was getting in touch with self, going deeper.
Walking. Thinking.
And there it was, the unexpected, a wooden bench with a slender trunk used as a back support, placed under the overhang of a laurel tree almost hidden out of sight. And look, a green tarp above, firmly tied into place to protect whoever sat beneath from the rain. Everything so carefully thought out. There was even a red torch tied to a branch dangling above for nighttime hangouts. Someone had put a lot of effort into creating this intimate, protective world. Thank you whoever you are for I was so happy to enter and just sit. I never normally sit on the chairs, I don’t want to, until that day when I was drawn to the bench like a magnet. Sitting there, thinking, enjoying, looking out at the beautiful sun kissed view. Tapping into my senses, I suddenly had an absolutely electrifying lightbulb epiphany moment. It came to me in a flash. I realised that all this time my photographic series Someone’s Chair had represented loss. Loss of love, loss of loved ones. Loss of my brother Mark who died so tragically and suddenly at the tender age of twenty four. All this time I had been looking for my brother but I just didn’t know it, and all this time, I now realise, Mark had been coming to see me. My beautiful brother, it was him who was sitting on all of those chairs and it was him that made me stop and look.
14/52 chairs
