Contact: lizziehazeldine@hotmail.co.uk

During the development of my final year studying (BA Hons) Fine Art at University of Leeds, my practice has shifted and evolved through a simultaneous exploration of photography and creative writing.

Exploiting text and image, I hope to reveal something elusive, and ineffable. Photography offers me a resolute way of perceiving the world; taking a picture is a decisive act. It is a process of questioning, and it is the satisfaction of always finding answers to pervasive curiosity. As I take more and more photographs, I have come to realise the personal significance of the prolific nature of taking digital photos; it is a kind of hoarding. A hoarding of time – of moments stilled through the tidy rectangular frame of the camera. It is also control – control over which moments become symbolic and everlasting, and which can be forgotten – tossed into the black hole of the virtual trash can. Obsolete. Gone. Residing only in porous memory, where it in turn will fade. It is a perpetual process of holding on and letting go – always in easy antitheses. An easy decision between a yes or a no. A question with a guaranteed answer. A kind of therapy. Is it a good photograph, or is it not? What constitutes a good photograph evades academic articulation. It is an intuitive response which is in itself relieving. A quiet and unthinking certainty. Yes or no. Good or bad. Question and answer.

The process of responding to the photographs – to intuitively select which should take curatorial precedence over the others – is an invitation into a mental space free of words, and unfettered by language. It is an activity hung in diametric balance with the other half of my fine art practice: writing. Writing is a central part of my creative process; it strengthens and informs my practice of observation. Through describing settings, characters and place, I develop my empirical awareness and learn how snippets of varied imagery can inform the understanding of a ‘bigger picture’.