Fine Art nominee

The starting point for this work was the phenomenon of unreliable memory.

Accessing memory appears to be a constructive process. The mind recreates places and experiences in the moment of recollection. So how much if any, of our memories reflect objective truth?

This series explores a collision between the objective truth of a place of memory and the subjective reconstruction of that place in the mind. The memory rebuilt anew at the moment of recall. Patchworked from adjacent memories, imagined details, received stories and fragments of subjective experience.

This work was a process of revisitation. A return to half-forgotten places of childhood. Each panorama was shot digitally and then transferred to analogue film. The scenes then recreated by exposing chemically treated material scraps to the negative in the darkroom. Each scrap was then collaged back together to recreate the original scene. An act of physically reconstructing memory.

The collaged objects were then photographed once more and placed back into the original scenes.

Jason Kilmister is a London based photographer and visual artist.

His work ranges from large format colour images to video and sculpture characterised by a desire to represent a psychological space, somewhere between illusory and real, a place half remembered.

The work combines digital and analogue processes, merging darkroom-exposed mixed media, collage and sculpture with digital composite techniques.

Kilmister combines a methodological approach with chance and intuition to find his way through concept and representation, his images an emergent property of a meticulous creative process.

Working predominantly with landscapes shot in a cinematic wide format Jason seeks to explore beneath the surface of everyday perception—to uncover what is occluded by the mental maps we use to make sense of our surroundings, to break down assumptions and probe the tension between objectivity and subjectivism. To pursue the elusive properties of memory, metaphysics and psychology.

Driven by the core belief that reality is a poorly understood medium, Kilmister's work reflects a fascination with aesthetic potential, the nature of truth and a sense of wonder fostered by a childhood spent between the South Downs, the Scottish Borders and India.