Picturing the Valleys through different lens
AN ONLINE exhibition of photographs by Jon Pountney is a timely reminder that lockdown can force us to pause and look with fresh eyes at the world around us.
“Lockdown really made me look close to home and explore the area around Treforest and Pontypridd that we live in,” says Jon, a professional artist and photographer based in
Rhondda Cynon Taf. “With all my usual work cancelled, I had time to look around places I’ve been meaning to go to in the five years we’ve lived here. I’ve always worked in specific areas and tried to create a sense of place with my work, so really there was no feeling of dislocation as I went straight into a new body of work.
“I was incredibly lucky with the weather as it was perfect for what felt like about three months – I prefer clear, strong sunlight and as I went out each day spring was happening all around me.
“The real turning point was heading up the Eglwysilan in late May and finding a landscape that seemed as if it was lifted straight out of Cornwall or west Wales – there is a very old church with an incredible churchyard and a pub, with an amazing feeling of isolation that was only amplified by lockdown.”
For many years Jon has been focused on widening the way south Wales is represented through photography. He recently decided that the frustrating and clichéd characterisation of the area has its origin in the industries present there over the past 250 years – work created in and of the area has only ever dealt with these industries and their subsequent loss.
“This new landscape that I had found suggested that ideas I had been mulling over, about a project showing the Valleys without industrialisation, was a possible and really powerful subject,” he says.
He took inspiration from the landscape he had grown up in, in rural Warwickshire, and the nostalgia he has for areas he had not seen in south Wales before – mat-ure oak trees, dry-stone walling, isolated little hamlets and rundown farm buildings.
“Then a friend suggested I look into the stones on Coedpenmaen Common in Pontypridd and I couldn’t believe there was a folklore element I could also incorporate into the project,” he says.
“I’m creating an imaginary south Wales where industrialisation happened elsewhere and there are folklore links with other ancient areas of Britain.”
As a photographer, Jon is motivated by the need to tell stories and create narratives.
He views each project much like an album of music or a film – they are all self-contained bodies of work.
“With this project I’m playing with the idea of ‘casting’ characters in the narrative – some are real people, others are characters playing roles within the images,” he says.
“As the space I’m working with is semi-imaginary, I’m not sticking to rules of everyone having to live in the area.”
Having previously shot a lot of film, Jon used a Nikon D600 digital camera for the majority of this work and has just bought a D800 to continue with, finding the digital medium far more convenient.
Most of the pictures were taken within 10-15 miles of Treforest since May. Richly evocative, with an almost mythical quality, the work weaves a new and intriguing narrative about Wales.
“For the first time I’m consciously creating an imaginary space in an alternate reality, which is quite an unusual thing within photography, but it happens all the time in film,” says Jon. “I’m also doing some writing about it and thinking of having a map created for the area – the work is related to my other project The Allure of Ruins, which looks at the remains of industry in Wales, and I’m very interested to see how the two projects will relate to each other.
“I really hope that the project shows a different approach in characterising south Wales, more rooted in folklore and rural life, and maybe brings together strands of history which have been totally eclipsed by the Industrial Revolution.”
I really hope that the project shows a different approach in characterising south Wales, more rooted in folklore and rural life
The full body of work is on show online now at www.jonpountney. co.uk