Nothing of Importance is a photographic project by London based photographer Michael Bodiam. The series is the result of a visual exploration along the well-trodden path through the iconic state of California. Rather than pursuing the expected, these pictures explore the urban and rural landscape for scenes that feature geometric form, blocks of colour and moments of incongruous man-made interventions.
During the course of the series, these prominent, but unknowing, visual elements reveal parallels between objects present in the everyday and that of abstract art. Ordinary objects, such as a shipping container or a pair of telegraph poles can take on sculptural significance within the pictorical framework. Should the viewer embrace this notion of abstraction, with it, comes a new discourse relating to space, form, depth and colour.
If this dialogue ensues, this does not mean to say that the connection between the image and its origin will subsequently become irrelevant. These instances of abstraction coexist with the literal, meaning that the series can at once be conceptual exploration of abstraction, as well as a documentation of place.
The images utilise the limits of the frame and the fixed point of view as a way of controlling the viewer’s experience, yet for every instance of control there are subtle nuances of poetic serendipity. The banal intertwines with the pictoresque and moments of unconventional beauty arise from the seemingly ordinary. These impartial images eschew drama and sensation and instead allow time for a detailed contemplation of the spatial elements set out before us.
Text and images © Michael Bodiam
