Sam King

I love to walk. I walk in the country, beside the sea, around towns and cities and as I walk I am drawn to nature. Inspired by the experience of walking both in the natural and built environment my work explores my own relationship with nature and the relationship between man and nature. I am always asking myself what nature means to me and what it means to the world.

I see my practice as an ongoing process, I walk, observe, and photograph my everyday experiences of nature. It’s an intuitive and emotional response to the aesthetics of nature in the environment, whether it be a gnarly tree on a path or a tiny weed in the pavement that catches my eye. The processes I employ to create my work have developed from a desire to share the experience and beauty of nature and a belief in leaving living things where they belong. Although I work with photography as a starting point and use digital media within my work, I also enjoy using physical materials, leading to works which often sit between genres.

The Jena Romantics’ theories, shared by James Lovelock and artist Herman de Vries, about how man’s separation from nature has led to the exploitation of the natural world continues to influence my work. My most recent projects have demonstrated to me how I look at place and environment, seeing a separation between man and nature, the built and the organic, but at the same time looking for connections and relationships between the two.

Through sharing my observations of the relationship between man and nature I hope to prompt the viewer to consider what nature means to them.