Description

Baskeyfield and Popham, Shaped by Stone began as an artistic project and then became an exhibition. A version of it was shown at GroundWork alongside herman de vries ‘on the stony path’. This is an artist’s book which records this stunning creative project about landscape and stone. Tom Baskeyfield and Mario Popham have documented the landscape and built environment around Macclesfield, Cheshire. They have worked in different media, in order to complement each other. As a result, they tell an interweaving story about place and land.

Artists deeply engaged with the environment

Tom Baskeyfield said: “Over recent years my practice has developed in response to
the ecological crisis we find ourselves in, and a concern for how we got here. I am
moved to seek out the connections and relationships we have with each other and
the earth. This takes me back to the land where I am drawn, in particular, to fields
and quarries as potential bridging places, sites of interaction between ourselves and
the planet. The relationship we have with the land is deeply complex, formed over
millennia. I see art as a lens, and a language, to explore this relationship and to
respond and communicate.”

Mario Popham added: “Walter Benjamin tells us ‘the present comprises the entire
history of mankind as an enormous abridgement’. I see photography as a means to
make a lyrical enquiry into our common history, the ways in which we live with our
past and our ever-shifting relationship to the natural world.”

Baskeyfield and Popham Shaped by stone tells a story about the making of a place. On the one hand we see the raw materials in the stony landscape through Mario Popham’s black and white photographs. On the other hand, we see the stone in the town more clearly through his detailed and atmospheric views. We gain an overall sense of the connections between town and country. However this is made clearer specifically through the use of materials. Tom Baskeyfield made stone rubbings using graphite. His work turns one material into another. What began as hard stone, through his subtle transformation, becomes fragile. His rubbings shine and glitter. Between them the two artists have produced a multi-layered artistic response. This book is a wonderful record of that.