9 Questions with Jonathan Walland - Magazine Issue04

Jonathan Walland is a photographer featured in Al-Tiba9 magazine ISSUE04, interviewed by Mohamed Benhadj.

Using minimalism as a method of enabling clarity, Jonathan Walland approaches modern architecture in a way that eliminates distraction and pushes forward a sense of clarity, keeping the viewer focused on the purest elements of photography. He shifts the visual characteristics synonymous with painting onto the photographic medium and he separates the structure onto multiple layers in a way that diverts the attention of the viewer. 

Walland’s work is to be viewed concurrently in print, on a large scale, consistent with the massive amount of detail present in each photograph. Each piece is shot as part of a stitch in order to produce a more intimate examination of the structure.

Jonathan, you are a visual artist, designer, and photographer. How did your education, experience, or training develop your skills?

I am for the most part self-taught, my process refining itself over the course of many years. The formal education I have received has functioned primarily as a facilitator for the work I produce, not in reference to the principles it is equipped to teach, but for the time and space within which I have developed my techniques.

Please describe the intention behind your art. How do you express this intention successfully?

My essential objective when making work is to transfer my own visual interpretation of architecture over to the viewer. This is achieved via a reduction of elements, a process that enables a more focused command of the observers’ interactions with the image. 

While the aesthetic of the work begs to be classified as minimalist, I feel it is important to note at this point that it is ultimately a tool, and is predominantly functional, rather than stylistic. I use minimalism, rather than work within its criteria.

Your photographic projects reflect your vision by documenting the architect’s structural form accurately to achieve a sense of clarity. Can you expand on this philosophy and its importance?

In my Structures project, an objective of mine was to leave the structural aspects of the buildings untouched, the process attaching exclusively to the way in which light is distributed over the structure. The absence of light is employed to divert attention as opposed to physically mutating the structural design of the building. Elements I consider unnecessary are removed not through physically changing them, but by reducing their intensity to such an extent that they are no longer visible.

The sense of clarity that is achieved through this process is one that presents itself in alignment with the yes/no scenario I go about engineering. Black or white, visibility and invisibility: often there is no middle ground. The visual clarity that one experiences is a product of these simple decisions that are made.

Your process includes lighting, exposure, and advanced computational design. How can you describe your complex artistic production and technique for our readers?

By manually dividing an image onto separate layers, each structural facet can be manipulated individually, forming a complex of many different variables, each entirely isolated from one another. This achieves the level of control I have over the way in which the observer of the work submits their attention.

I prefer to think of this as transferring the attributes synonymous with painting over to that of photography. The painter holds total control over the elements within the canvas but lacks the accuracy and neutrality of the machine. The traditional photographer sacrifices control by shifting much of their artistic direction over to the camera, however, this achieves a near-perfect representation due to the objectivity of the computer. Through marrying the control of the painter, and neutrality of the photographer, the product sits somewhere between the two mediums in a state that no longer resembles either one.

Your approach to modern architecture eliminates distraction, focusing the viewer on its purest elements through the photograph. Could you reveal this focusing process in directing the viewer’s eye and what do you point to?

The building has two primary functions: to fulfill its operational duties and to appeal aesthetically. My process makes redundant the values of the former, reappropriating structural form in such a way that realizes only its aesthetic merit.

In reference to what it is I may be drawing attention to, much of this is dependent on the structure itself. However, I am ultimately attempting to grasp its aesthetic appeal and isolate it, translating it in the form of a photographic print.

They say if you could be anything but an artist, don’t be an artist. What career are you neglecting right now by being an artist?

This is certainly not a question I have ever had to entertain before, however, my secondary interests don’t pivot too far from the creative industry — I derive enormous pleasure from design and presentation, so perhaps graphic or product design are fields I may have neglected over the years. That being said, I’m fully committed to my practice and I don’t currently have any intention of meandering into either of these two circles.

What current project are you working on?

I am currently in the early stages of a series focusing primarily on post-war & brutalist architecture that doesn't immediately reflect a minimalist aesthetic. I am applying my process in such a way that contradicts the original intentions of the architect, forming a series of roughly 20 images. My most ambitious project to date, and the first that extends into Europe, I am hoping to engineer a series that corrects many of the issues I have with my former work, as well as adopting an architectural specificity.

What is your favorite escape from your busy London professional life to get new and fresh inspiration?

In many ways, London is my inspiration, the subject of my work forming the city I live in. That being said, my visits to rural England have proved to be enormously satisfying, landscape photography also being an additional hobby.

Who is Jonathan Walland in three words?

Meticulous, precise, obsessed.