It has been said that de Chirico set out to “paint that which could not be seen,” and it is here that we find a parallel in Brent’s tableaux. In which he contextually reframes the landscape - both geographically and metaphysically - and in doing so, he walks a path first trodden by the Pittura Metafisica movement and its founder Giorgio de Chirico (1888-1978).
INBETWEEN LAND ACHIEVEMENTS SERIES
It is these very strands and themes that artist Martin Brent questions in his tableaux series the Inbetween Places. “In defining place identity - a core concept within environmental psychology - it is “those dimensions of self that define the individual’s personal identity in relation to the physical environment by means of a complex pattern of conscious and unconscious ideas, feelings, values, goals, preferences, skills, and behavioural tendencies relevant to a specific environment” wrote the eminent environmental psychologist Professor Harold M.
Why do we feel that we belong in some places, whilst not in others? Wayne Ford wrote about Brent’s images and asked the fundamental question: Subverting the gaze of this mass I hope to at least provoke discussion as to how society proceeds from here and if it can continue to other vast sections of the world population. Yet that power is exclusionary, be it by birth, socio economic status or political affiliation. The land, the things and structures imposed on it are used as a symbol of ownership and power but also placation of the mass. The projects intention is to challenge the illusion of identity, nation state and artificial borders by reorganising and reframing found scenes, geographically and sometimes chronologically to create new places, sometimes with absurd juxtapositions. Reflecting my personal anxiety with global politics, the current obsession with reinstating borders and walls and consumerism. The name is derived from the feeling I get when I find and photograph these places, they’re neither the beginning or the end of my journeys. The Inbetween Places are tableau landscapes formed from images of real world locations and structures.