ABERTRIDWR & SENGHENYDD | Lucy Jane Purrington

ABER VALLEY

This project begins on a deliberate path of moving past the trauma of the past and hopes to explore the specific cultural juxtapositions of the area.
This ongoing photographic project explores the evolving meanings embedded within the Aber Valley trough its landscapes and the marks and detritus left by the community of people living here.

The following colour landscape images are made from two separate pictures that are stood side by side. The photograph on the left will be referred to as ‘Left’ and the image on the right as ‘Right’. A description of each image will then follow. Left: This is a picture of two tree trucks growing apart from each other in opposite directions towards both corners of the image. They are covered in green moss.
Right: This image is of a muddy track with wide track marks leading down the image from a tractor. On the one side of the tracks is overgrowth and on the other, a tall green fence.

Left: This is an image of a rushed metal shed roof in tones of brown and orange. Overgrowth and tree branches are clinging to the sides of it as nature reclaims this building.

Right: This is an image of two trees on the left side of the photo. The one is covered in leaves and small red berries, the one next to it is bare and most likely dead. Behind is a cloudy sky.

Left: Three rows of black old tyres fill the image, with green luscious ivy covering and growing over the top row.
Right: Green and yellow ivy covers an old stone wall with only the middle of the image exposing the brown stones. On top of the wall is an empty green beer bottle with a white label on it’s side and a random loose red brick.

Left: A children’s discarded old teddy toy in tones of pink has been torn apart and left on a grey tarmac road. A bold royal blue metal building is stood behind.

Right: This is a photograph of the back of football stands where spectres to a game can sit and watch. The walls of the building are made from white breeze blocks at the base and metal corrugated panels anted in a pale turquoise colour. The pain is fading and peeling off in large sections, exposing white metal underneath. On the brick walls is black spray painted graffiti which reads, ‘weed 4 life’ and ‘Nathan G 2 K 17.’ A layer of overgrown grass takes up the bottom section of the photograph.

Left: This is a warm toned scene of the inside of a shed. Large and long tools are neatly hung upon hooks on a pale orange wall.
Right: Another view from inside the same shed, this image featured a plastic grey chair with a large container full of green apples.

Left: This is an image of a river with a bright yellow broken TV dumped in the middle. The back of the square TV is falling off and likely to be washed away. To the right is a wall that forms he side of a bridge and to the left of the river the bank is visible with green overgrowth growing and dangling into the water below.
Right: The image is made up entirely of a bright yellow wall with only a long black wooden panel breaking up the scene. At the base, dead brambles lay on the ground.

Left: A broken ares car with smashed windows lays behind a rusted metal gate. Brambles and shrubs grow over the car, almost concealing it from the viewer.
Right: This is an image of another broken car with a smashed window. Nature is also reclaiming the scene and brambles have been left to grow wild. The broken window has sticky tape over it, as though at some point there was an attempt to fix the car. Panels of rusted metal lay at the side of the car.

Left: This is a close up image of tree branches with red berries clinging to the twigs. There are very few leaves attached, implying that it must be winter. A turquoise coloured length of plastic is caught in the branches and blows in the wind.
Right: Matching the turquoise colour of the image to the left, this is a photo of a long length of garden hose piping wrapped in circles and knots laying on a floor. The floor has weeds and overgrown covering it.

Left: This is a photo of a thin tree trunk with two arrows drawn on pointing downwards. Behind is a dark forest scene.
Right: This is a photo of a tarmac floor with a thick white arrow drawn on in chalk. The arrow is facing upwards and has two lines drawn underneath.

Left: This is a photo of long branches and tree trucks that have been cut down all piled up in a large mass.
Right: This is a photo comprised of textured brown walls of a building. Exposed brickwork, wooden panels and a boarded up window occupy the picture. Graffiti has been scratched into the wooden panels in the bottom section of the image that read ‘APA.’

Left: Both images are made from grass verges and brown sections of walls and tarmac. The lines between them run parallel but with opposite colours at each section. The photo on the left has grass at the bottom and a bricked wall above. Rows of metal scaffolding poles are leaning against the wall.
Right: This contrasting image has a thin slither of tarmac at the bottom of the image, with green grass occupying the rest. A pathway moves from the bottom right towards the upper left of the photograph.

Both images on the left and right are of metal threads protruding from grassy ground. Relics of the landscape’s industrial past with nature now reclaiming the once barren earth.

Both images are of red objects hidden amongst green overgrown and brambles. The image on the left is a broken red umbrella. The image on the right is of a red plastic food crate typically used to hold fruit or vegetables.

Left: White pillows, duvets and sheets are fly tipped in a grassy overgrown back lane. The photograph is on a diagonal to the pathway which leads the eye across the image.
Right: This is a photo of a tarmac back lane with a concrete garage without a door. White duvet and pillow stuffing has been fly tipped on the ground which oddly looks like clumps of snow. Behind it and tucked in the doorway of the garage is a broken mattress and coffee table.

Left: This is a photo of lightly coloured grey metal fence amongst tall grass and brambles. A can of red coke has been left leaning next to one of the metal fence poles.
Right: This is a photo of a thin tree truck with a red exclamation point drawn on in paint. Behind the tree is a wooden fence, holding back wall brambles and gorse bushes.

These image is made up entirely of textured wall space. The image on the left has three sections, the top section extends down two thirds of the length of the image and is made p from deep red bricks. A white line of painted wall forms a barrier between the glossy deep red bricks above and the painted dull bricks below. A round white plastic pipe can be seen poking out of the wall in the top left section of the image.
Right: The larger top section, which also tapes up about two thirds of the image, is of green corrugated metal panelling. The paint is faded and pealing off in large chucks to reveal a murky grey odour underneath. Beneath the metal panels is a red bricked wall. In the top left side of the image protrudes a square rusted metal cage which cases a ventilation port. Rust marks extend down the wall from this in long stripes.

Both photographs on the left and right are of black jackdaws in flight in a white sky. Telegraph cables run from the middle sections down to the bottom external sides of the image.

Left: Two CCTV cameras facing away from each other are set upon a pale grey metal tower with interconnecting poles that criss cross to form a secure structure. Behind is a grey cloudy sky.
Right: A tall empty flat pole stands amongst a grey cloudy sky.

Left: Amongst grassy overgrowth to the side of a pathway is a discarded hula hoop in bright colours of blue, pink, white and yellow.
Right: Three circular shapes made from two black bike wheels and a white inner tube of a bike wheel are caught high up in pale tree beaches.

Left: A long length of white plastic is caught and on a small tree branch and flows in the gentle wind.
Right: A long length of white plastic is caught on a rock in a dark river. A green fern is on the bottom left side of the image, a contract between nature and man made materials.

Left: This is a picture of a very large turquoise plastic sheet that is laying on the floor. Beams of wood hold it tight to the ground. Dead leaves have collected in the wrinkles of the plastic.
Right: Matching the turquoise tones of the other image, this photo is of two garage doors painted in a deep colour. The door to the left has horizontal panelled lines and the door to the right, diagonal panelled lines that extend from the middle sections outwards. Above is corrugated metal with verbal lines.

Both images are of the same building in bold and bright colours of blue. The image on the left is a far away image of a blue wall with two very small rectangular shapes in the centre; one is a window with a brown wooden frame and the other a small plastic white vent. Behind is a lovely blue sky with a puff of cloud in the left side. Four skinny chimneys rise above from the culver corrugated metal roof.
Right: This is a close up image of the two rectangular shapes in the previous image.

Left: This is a photo of a light brown floor with beautiful spike leaves in colours of green and yellow poking into the shot.
Right: This photo has complimentary colours in the yellow horizontal painted road markings on a roadside and a random working glove in colours of blue, yellow and red.

These are photographs of two exterior walls side by side. Both images are split into two colour blocks that compliment each other with similar colour tones but contrast each other in opposite postings of these colour blocks. The picture on the left has a darker section on the top and a paler creamy section underneath. The photograph to the right has the opposite with a lighter cream colour on top and darkener underneath. A rusted metal cage protrudes from the wall in the left image and a white cable runs across the image on the right.

Left: This fist photo is of a red wooden fence with vertical panelling with green grass underneath. Just off centre is a light grey metal rectangle drain covering which is partially concealed by the fence.
Right: This is a scene of a red fence in vertical panels meeting a red brick wall with prominent horizontal lines. From the place that they meet protrudes green brambles adorned with succulent black berries.

Left: These two images complement eachother in terms of tones, patterns and textures. The image on the left is of a red brick wall on a steep hill. The wall follows the curve of the road underneath downwards from left to right. Behind is a red wooden fence with vertical panelled lines. Green overgrown spills out from underneath the fence. On the pavement floor is a bright yellow grit box for use in the Winter months to melt the ice and snow. It too follows the steep shape of the hill and is on a diagonal slant.
Right: This is a close up image of two red brick walls meeting with an inch in between. Some of the concrete holding the bricks is missing on the left and two yellow stickers have been placed above which work together to form a face. Dead weeds protrude from the cracks at the base of the wall.

Left: This is a picture of a metal sheet of fabric in various tones of grey. In scribbly black writing are the words ‘Wales forever’ The writing has the stain of faded white paint over the top as though someone tried to cover up and hide the world ‘Wales.’
Right: This is a photograph of a tall white flagpole with the Welsh flag blowing in the wind. In the foreground are green ferns, out of focus as though the person taking the image was peering in to a scene that they didn’t have permission to see.

Left: This was once a beautiful mosaic made of small tiles about an inch squared in size of a Welsh red dragon. Age has damaged it beyond repair with many pieces missing and the shape of the dragon now almost unrecognisable.
Right: There is a pile of earth piled into a large heap on a street. A black plastic liner is held down on part of the heaped earth by a singular stone brick. This attempt to conceal or cover seems comical in that it the sleuth is far too small and much of the soil is exposed.

Left: This is a scene depicting a rundown and graffitied street. To the left stands a pale green lamp post with a ‘no dog fouling’ sigh attached. Leaning against the pole is a green food waste recycling bin missing a lid. Just off centre is a metal grey door with various messages and words scrawled across. The most prominent is a green happy acid smiley face, contrasting to the derelict scene.
Right: This is a photo of a brick wall with a red framed window just off centre. The window is made of three panes; one of which is smashed and has been boarded up with a cupboard door.

Left: In the centre of this image is a pale wooden headboard from a bed resting against a traditional dark stone wall. From the top of the wall hang bluey-green shrubs.
Right: This is a photo of doorway to the back garden of a house.The wooden door is painted brown and the surrounding wall to the right is bright red. The door is ajar and a discarded child’s teddybear lays on the floor. The toy is looking upwards to the sky. Detritus and weeds grow around the doorway entrance.

Left: This is a photo of a dark brown traditional stone wall. At the bottom section of the image is a mahogany coloured door on it’s side. The door has a frosted and patterned window pane and a golden door handle.
Right: This is a picture of a green metal electrical box on a street. Behind is a freshly painted wall. The top three quarters are in a creamy colour. The bottom quarter is black.

Both images are comprised entirely of two separate blue toned walls. The first on the left has paint peeling to reveal white underneath. This produces an intricate textured look. To the right is another painted wooden wall with a small white smiley face in the centre. The top of a green rubbish bin can be seen on the right side of the picture.

Left: This is an image of a green hedge made of brambles and ivy. Behind this is a lovely blue sky with white clouds. Two white rugby poles are raised up into the sky from behind the hedge.
Right: This is a scene of a green metal bench, a freshly painted garage and a newly planted small tree on the side of a road.

Left: This is a photograph of a broken wooden pallet leaning against an external grey wall. A white drain pipe rises from behind the pallet. To the right there is a wooden door with white paint peeling away and exposing dark brown wood.
Right: This is a picture of another piece of wood against an external wall, this time part of a fence. The wall is made from breeze blocks with a sight pinky tint. These meet a more traditional stone section of wall that protrudes outwards. Another concrete section is on the other side of this.

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