Marc Provins

Last year, I made a book. As often happens with creative undertakings, it has taken time and distance to understand how I feel about it, particularly because it’s shaped by very personal experiences. The work continues my photographic exploration of the city’s periphery: that liminal space just beyond the urban, but not yet rural. It also probes my own personal boundaries, made during a period of profound change in my life, what you might call a midlife crisis of sorts. As a wise friend reminded me, according to the   Oxford English Dictionary , the original meaning of   crisis   is “a state of affairs in which a decisive change for better or worse is imminent; a turning point.” This book is my attempt to make sense of that turning point: to explore what it means to be in my fifties, to be queer in my fifties, to inhabit an ageing body, to consider how others respond to that body, and to examine how I feel about how others feel about it. Walking, using that same ageing bo...

Admittedly this is a little after the event but I use my blog as an archive of my creative work, so I'm adding a little update of a collaborative exhibition early this year with printmaker Anne Liddell.  More comprehensive information can be found here: https://gentledelirium.com

Two leaves from the fatsia japonica in my front garden. One leaf is fresh growth, the other at least a year old, and looking the worse for wear after riding out our seven month winter and then being exposed to intense heat and strong sun.  I never stop marvelling at the resilience and fragility of the natural world. 

It's been a long, strange winter and this apparently delicate beauty has survived it, Beast from the East and all. It's one of several hellebores in my garden, a gift a few years ago from dear friends. All my plants have stories and associations and that's what makes the process of growing and nurturing so life affirming for me.

I've been moving this amaryllis around the house for a couple of weeks, hanging on to it so that I could make a still life. However my life has been anything but still and I've just not had the time. Over the intervening weeks it has changed, decayed and actually become more interesting, more sculptural. Like all my recent pictures the subject was planted and grown by me, nurtured on the windowsill, my winter garden. I construct an improvised daylight studio in my home and have lots of coloured backgrounds, enjoying the process of styling and building the still life. Strangely after I'd made these photographs I discovered that the background I used here is called Marrs Green, recently pronounced The World's Favourite Colour by paper makers GF Smith after an online survey. Aptly it was inspired by the Scottish landscape and Caroline Till, the editor of Viewpoint Colour Magazine, suggested the shade's success was down to people wanting to reconnect with the natura...

Delicate strength. 

Some things are shared by everyone on Earth.  30 words for shade: hije gerizpe адценне hlad сянка ombra hlad odstín nuance schaduw vari sävy ombre sombra schatten skugga scáth nokrāsa atspalvis ладовина dell nyanse cień umbră оттенок odtieň senca nyans відтінок cysgod שאָטן

These pictures were made using the natural light coming into my improvised studio, late in the evening just after the summer solstice. The leaves are from the gunnera in my front garden, which unconventionally I keep in a pot to restrict his size. They are native to Madagascar but he seems to quite like the moist Manchester air. Handling this precious creature is like reaching back to the Jurassic period, it looks like dinosaur salad and is believed to have been around for 150 millions years.  My English suburban front garden is a time machine.

Although I love growing and colour I wouldn't have chosen roses for my garden. I inherited these from the last owner of my home, and despite some tentative pruning and tying in they've been pretty much neglected. At the moment I have two high fences completely covered in them, literally hundreds, I feel like I should invite people around to see them, its a rather ridiculous, spectacular sight I feel I need to share. Whilst collecting these I got several injuries, which reminded me of their dual nature; all pretty and delicate on top whilst below they snag and catch with their razor like thorns. 

London is a very big city  You could lose yourself in London You could find yourself in London