An Unlikely Encounter

I have been reading a David Du Chemin book that talks about how artists get inspiration and it makes reference to Steve Jobs (Apple fame) and how he said that creativity is just connecting  dots.  The dots in this case represent a collection of our individual experiences accumulated along the journey of our lives and filed away for later use.  The more dots in our collection the more connections we can make to gain inspiration.

 

This is my story about connecting the dots.

 

I saw one of those colourful vans the other day that people hire to camp and tour around...Wicked Campers I think it's called and on the side of the van was written "A Clockwork Orange". Now that was one of the first "R" rated movies I had ever heard of way back in my youth.  I have no idea what the film is about (and I don't want to know) as I was too young to be allowed to go and see it, but the notion of a literal clockwork orange intrigued me...it has been a long time since I had thought about it but seeing those words on the side of the van brought the mental vision back to me

 

About the same time I happened to walked past a piece of bark on the ground that reminded me of an anteater head/nose complete with eye...I walked past but something said, forced me even, to go back and pick it up...I could use that I thought....

 

In 2015 I won a silver award at the Australian Professional Photographers awards for a steampunk image I created.  I liked it at the time, but have always had this fascination with Steampunk and clocks (I took a clock apart once and was even able to put it all back together so it still worked!) and so I had in my Pandora's box a small collection of clock parts, cogs and wheels and springs etc.

 

Meantime I have been looking at the work of a number of  book illustrators and been fascinated how they are able to bring life to inanimate objects, making it seem like they are actually alive...I really liked "The Cooker" in Nick Park's animated film of Wallace and Gromit, "A Grand Day Out". Have you seen it?  Its the stove on the moon that sprouts arms and comes to life after Wallace puts a coin in the coin slot.

 

Those four dots I had collected over all those years finally connected (collided?) as An Unlikely Encounter.

 

The landscape was photographed near my home at Seven Mile Beach at my favourite time - in a fog. I photographed a roadside box, cabinet, delivery safe keeping....not sure what it was really but it was near Oatlands in Tasmania.  The bark "anteater head" was found at Seven Mile Beach and the clockwork was shot in my home studio.  There are 104 layers and 21 individual photographs that make up the image. The layered file is 7.8 GB in size.

This image is an original composition by Suellen Cook. All prints are Limited Edition, signed by the artist.

 

Produced by fine art printers, Full Gamut.

Please note; Prints are made to order. Please allow 10-15 business days for production and shipping. Delivery times will vary with destination.