Paraglacial is a term relating to ‘unstable conditions’ deriving from glacial climates. From these unstable conditions geomorphic forms begin to change the landscape of our Earth.
My first experience of glaciers came from travelling around Iceland. The whole trip and subsequent trips moved me profoundly. Stark, raw and beautiful exist simultaneously. There are fields of lava where Apollo astronauts trained for the lunar missions. It is an alien and a primordial terrain that geologically and visually feels newborn.
The experience of travelling deep into the Icelandic interior stayed with me for a long time and I began to experience other landscapes in other countries as shifting and changing entities. In some cases these changes happen over thousands of years. In the case of our planet’s precious glaciers these are changing at an alarming rate. On hiking over Iceland’s southern Vatnajökull’s glacier tongue, Svínafellsjökull, our knowledgeable guide made us aware how much this particular outstretch of ice had receded in just 12 months.
The series Paraglacial/Geomorphic derived from this newfound awareness that landscape never stays the same. With this in mind I began photographing in various European places such as Iceland, North Wales, Greece and the Balearic Islands. All of which contained glacial and non-glacial formations.
Often barren and austere in appearance the original landscape image was manipulated to produce a mirroring of its original self but with ever so slight subtle changes. On the lighter side of the image the over layering of grids denotes map referencing, location and a disappearing land. The darker and negative side gives way to a foreboding almost otherworldly landscape.
Selected images from Pauline’s Paraglacial | Geomorphic series are shown below
ABOUT PAULINE WOOLLEY
Pauline’s background is in Fine Art and she graduated from Leeds Metropolitan University in 1997. In the last 10 years she has moved over to making work using camera, camera less and lens less techniques based around ideas of the landscape, science and astronomy.
For the last 15 years she has worked as a Media and Photography Technical Assistant at a large Sixth Form College, which includes running a large black and white darkroom.
She is an Associate Member of Backlit Studios, Nottingham and within that part of the OUTSIDER collective. Backlit and OUTSIDER will be at Tate Modern on February 20th, 21st and 22nd February 2018 as part of Tate Exchange.
Website: paulinewoolley.co.uk
Instagram: @Pauline_Woolley_Visual_Artist
CREDITS
Unless otherwise stated, all words and images in this article are © Pauline Woolley
