The Landscape Room 2001

Photographs, 30″ x 40″ 
Mounted on aluminium, framed and glazed 
Edition of 5

The Landscape Room comprises six photographs, shot using a medium-format camera, which were combined with fractal landscapes based on the grounds at Holkham Hall, North Norfolk. The Landscape Room makes reference to the room of the same name at Holkham Hall where 17th century landscape paintings, many acquired during The Grand Tour, are displayed against crimson damask walls. Such paintings influenced the landscape designers, Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown and Humphry Repton, who re-designed Holkham’s parklands and gardens.

The Red Books, made by East Anglian landscape designer Humphry Repton (1752 – 1818) also influenced the work. The Landscape Room alludes to large-scale, long-term and detailed sculpting of the English landscape. Brown and Repton moved villages, re-routed rivers, planted large woodlands, excavated huge lakes and created artificial ruins in order to compose views that echoed those seen in landscape painting. The artifice of their huge projects is no longer apparent but their designs influence our reading of ‘the English natural’.

Acquired by: Castle Museum, Norwich. Deutsche Bank, London. Private collectors.