Of the Hill
“No house should ever be on a hill or on anything. It should be of the hill. Belonging to it. Hill and house should live together each the happier for the other.” Frank Lloyd Wright
‘Of the Hill’ is my emotional and psychological response to the Pōneke/Wellington hills where I live. Here are a few images I've been working on.
The full work is available as a limited edition book from MMM Photobooks.
To see an exhibition which includes this work visit Places in the Mind on the PhotoForum website.
" Macpherson’s images test pictorial landscape stereotypes. One image sees us looking down at homes peppering the hill, taken amongst the ground level wild grasses and blackberries (obscuring the view as much as the powerlines. This view picks out those neglected hillside green patches that have been left to creeping weeds as much as the pretty wooden homes, and in particular those around an odd oblong shaped walled and decked extension of a home’s private property, the wall marking out the strangeness of fee simple title boundaries. Meanwhile amongst the images of park land a series of giant tree stumps, mark how this town belt is changing. Most photographers would tilt the camera to be level with the ground, but instead Macpherson is one with the hill, recognising its gradient." Mark Amery from The Marzipan Tree (essay) part of the Places in the Mind exhibition.
“No house should ever be on a hill or on anything. It should be of the hill. Belonging to it. Hill and house should live together each the happier for the other.” Frank Lloyd Wright
‘Of the Hill’ is my emotional and psychological response to the Pōneke/Wellington hills where I live. Here are a few images I've been working on.
The full work is available as a limited edition book from MMM Photobooks.
To see an exhibition which includes this work visit Places in the Mind on the PhotoForum website.
" Macpherson’s images test pictorial landscape stereotypes. One image sees us looking down at homes peppering the hill, taken amongst the ground level wild grasses and blackberries (obscuring the view as much as the powerlines. This view picks out those neglected hillside green patches that have been left to creeping weeds as much as the pretty wooden homes, and in particular those around an odd oblong shaped walled and decked extension of a home’s private property, the wall marking out the strangeness of fee simple title boundaries. Meanwhile amongst the images of park land a series of giant tree stumps, mark how this town belt is changing. Most photographers would tilt the camera to be level with the ground, but instead Macpherson is one with the hill, recognising its gradient." Mark Amery from The Marzipan Tree (essay) part of the Places in the Mind exhibition.
Mary Macpherson, all images from of the hill