The Onslaught of Spring

Multiple exposure photograph

West Coast National Park MMXX

Limited edition print on Hahnemühle German etching paper

The West Coast National Park outside Cape Town explodes with technicolour flora in early September every year, luring me on an annual pilgrimage to make pretty pictures with the outrageously vibrant surroundings. This photograph was made on an excursion in 2020, my first real landscape photography adventure after a year and a half of lockdown, and I remember thinking how big and magical and sweet-smelling the world was after so many months of it feeling dark and tiny.

It was a perfect day, and an exceptional display of the world famous daisies. Left unperturbed by humans as it had been for such a luxuriously long time, the earth's vital energy was powerful and overflowing. Standing barefoot in the fields of flowers you could trick yourself into feeling as though you were tuned into its frequency; humming underfoot and in the air, radiating colour and life into the atmosphere like rain steaming off a hot tar road.

I made this double exposure photograph by superimposing a vista of the landscape with a collage I made by cutting triangles from a printing company's calendar. The particular page I sliced up was dedicated to expressions of the colour yellow, and the text fragments you might see are all about the history of this vivid pigment in art. It seemed like an apt intervention in this lemony landscape. I love how the physical fragments of paper and the ephemeral daisies blend so harmoniously purely on the basis of their comparable hues.

This work celebrates the vital energy of Spring, and how colour is the manifestation of this surge. Yellow in particular is the crayon we use to colour in the sun, the stars, lightning, and the magic dispensed by a wizard's staff. Oh, and flowers.