Marc Provins

This blog has suffered over the last 12 months from life events getting in the way of my creativity. However I feel I might be back on track after an inspirational jolt in the form of a trip to Arles, France. It might sound like something of a busman's holiday (I love that phrase, puts me in mind of 1960's Ealing films for some reason) as it was all about looking at photography exhibitions, taking pictures and talking about photography with my good friend and travelling companion Mike. It was a holiday but on reflection it was also pretty intense in that we saw all of the exhibitions in Les Rencontres d'Arles except one, and went off taking photographs between shows. We were looking, thinking, digesting the work of others, then going off exploring the city and making our own pictures. I like that your brain becomes a melting pot in this situation, stirring together a range of influences. There is the general hum in our own heads, the things that we th...

I hope I'm not confusing you, my blog audience, by bouncing between making work in the outside world and  still lives in  my intimate box room. I'm finding it quite thought provoking moving quickly from one to another, seeing shapes, arrangements and colours reflected from one approach in the other. I also like the blurring of the disciplines shifting from staged still life pictures one day to observing and framing the moving, changing world the next. It feels like they are coming together in some way, watch this space... The title of this blog post is the Dutch word we take our English word  still life  from. It came into use in the 17th Century to describe a genre of painting very much in fashion.  Hearing the Dutch language always makes me happy as it reminds me of two of the best years of my life living in Antwerp, and also my Belgian 'family', a lovely collection of people that are still great friends 20 years since my pal Matt and me fi...