Author, Langdon Hammer, encouraged his students to react (and to resist mere explanation). This philosophy is integral to Jake Fenoughty’s practice which adheres to scientific discoveries, issues such as limited land access and industrialisation, and the psychological impacts of nature. Reacting to such themes, the camera is regularly instated as a catalyst for activating movement; towering natural forms stretch towards, under, above the camera to situate audiences inside the chaos of nature as if it is dancing and spiralling around them.
Jake also experiments with alternative mediums. Occasionally, he coats photographic prints with oil paints to obscure pictorial objects, thus interfering with notions of photographic truth, to investigate detachment from place. In addition, he extracts dye from seemingly dead trees and tones prints with the solution, recording the trees’ scents and colours while enabling nature to reinvent his work aesthetically.
Robert Adams valued the synchronisation of style and subject in Making Art New. Jake locates subjects that do not overtly state themes but rather trace them; the human is rarely present but is consistently discernible in sturdy metal bolts, felled trees, and man-made walls.
The aforementioned textual works take various forms: creative writing and poetry. His poetry integrates free verse and modernist subjects yet sometimes with sparse archaic language. Fragmented, the works explore psychological deterioration in the context of nature’s sublimity and overwhelming material stature. Literary devices are used to restore momentum, reinforcing the fact that land is relentlessly breathing and creaking.
jfenoughty@hotmail.com
@jakefenoughty