Full Description
Imperfect brings together two distinct bodies of work by David George: richly detailed, square-format colour photographs made at night without artificial light, and intimate photogravures printed from plates, where each impression bears the evidence of a physical process.
The work grew from repeated walks along the North-East of England's river corridors — the River Tees, River Tyne and River Wear — using day-time black-and-white 'reconnaissance' to map locations, followed by return visits in darkness to make the colour photographs. The long night-time exposures produce images that feel both forensic and uncanny: the camera records a colour world the eye cannot reliably predict, and organic elements shift subtly against fixed, man-made structures. The photographs are 'as-seen' and unedited.
The gravures open a different register. Self-taught in the process, David George embraces variability, mistake and the 'war wounds' of printing — a partnership with process where each pull from the same plate will differ. Across both series runs a shared enquiry into landscape as something continually reshaped by economic pressure, and into the speed with which seemingly monolithic post-industrial structures can vanish.
