Darren Almond

The title of the book and exhibition is derived from the large-format Nocturnes (2004-2010) featuring photographs of moonlit landscapes using long exposure times, which evoke Romantic landscapes in their European variants and classical Japanese and Chinese landscape painting in their Asiatic motifs. The absence of shadows in these photographs is visible testimony to a seemingly frozen time, whose light doesn't actually illuminate the scenes as such, but instead hangs upon the open surfaces rather like an emanation from the landscape. Thus these photographs can be situated in the place where painting and photography, perception and imagination intersect. The artist duly formulates the experience of time as an endless repetition of abrasive and lengthy spiritual retreats in his powerful video piece "Sometimes Still" (2010). The special nature of this publication in cassette form relates to the specific execution of individual works, sometimes as a concertina folder or a simple booklet. Thus all of the photographs in the exhibition are adequately covered and the film receives a form of publication which can been viewed in particular as a mirror of the artist's experiences.