Guy Bigland, “Square Photographs of White Circle Paintings”

 

Guy Bigland
Corsham, United Kingdom
http://www.guybigland.com

Square Photographs of White Circle Paintings
2022
Digitally Printed book
5.9″ x 8.7″ x 0.25″

Artist Statement

I have been photographing mini-roundabouts for a number of years. The book features thirty-eight of these photographs.
Mini-roundabouts are circles painted directly onto the road surface but are always seen by drivers and pedestrians from the road as ellipses. I digitally stretch the ellipses to fill a square and thus making them as circular as possible, as they would appear if we could
view them from above.
The circles instruct motorists to observe a rule – intended to be seen rather than looked at. Although created ‘uncreatively’ by road painters, they can be read as outdoor public art. They present a surface patina which is the product both of the makers’ techniques
and the physical rigours that have been placed upon them over time.
The book features a short text on the rules and history of the mini-roundabout.

This work also exists in a moving image version where each image dissolves slowly into
the next over a 38 minute period