Haddiscoe, Norfolk

Location

Country: UK
City: London
Place: Government Art Collection

Mark Edwards’ large-scale photograph focuses on the open skies, flat land and natural environment of Haddiscoe, a village in Norfolk, East Anglia. In this bleak scene, under a greyish pink light, a dyke cuts a lonely route across a swathe of fenland. Empty of human presence, there is an intriguing, if slightly unnerving, sense of something or someone that waits around the corner.

 

Edwards is interested in the topography of the region, notably its low horizon line and a certain distinctive quality of light that has appealed to landscape painters such as John Crome (1768–1821) and John Sell Cotman (1782–1842), who were associated with the Norwich School of Painters. 

 

Commenting on his work, Edwards says:

 

My work is concerned with identity, both individually and collectively, which is manifested in the spaces we inhabit ... My pictures, like the landscape I depict, are multilayered. They present ... an internal enquiry where I explore my personal relationship with perception and reality. 

 

Haddiscoe, Norfolk is one a series of large-scale photographs, entitled All Our Yesterdays and Todays, depicting places in East Anglia. In 2002 Edwards was jointly commissioned by the Government Art Collection, the Government Office for the East of England (GO-EAST) and Commissions East to produce works for new Government Offices in the region. Other photographs in the series include views of Staithe in Norfolk and Mersea Island, Essex. 

 

Mark Edwards was born in 1965. He studied photography at De Montfort University, Leicester between 1997–98, since when he has exhibited his work in solo and group exhibitions in the UK. Shows include These Valued Landscapes, a group exhibition at Oriel Davies Gallery, Powys (2008–09); and Disturbances, a solo show at BCA Gallery, Bedford (2005). In 2008 Edwards participated in the Fourth Lianzhou International Photo Festival in China, with a joint exhibition shared with Nadav Kander. Works by Edwards are represented in the Victoria & Albert Museum (V&A), London, as well as several private collections. In 2007 he was commissioned by the V&A to produce The V&A 150th Anniversary Album. Recent exhibitions include The Ground on Which We Walk at the Waterfront Gallery, University Campus Suffolk, Ipswich and Island Stories; Fifty Years of Photography in Britain, V & A Museum, London (both 2013).

Places

England, Norfolk

Subjects

landscape C21st, stream, field, path, telegraph pole, electrical pylon

Materials & Techniques

aluminium, photograph (as object name), colour photograph

Artist

Mark Edwards (1965 - )

Title

Haddiscoe, Norfolk

Series Title

All Our Yesterdays and Todays

Date

2002

Medium

Colour photograph mounted on aluminium

Acquisition

Joint commission by GAC, Commissions East and the Government Office for the East of England (GO-East) for the GO-East offices, Cambridge, September 2002

Provenance

the artist (commission)

GAC number

17811