Text and Curation by Clare Callaghan
Nich Hance McElroy Explores our Relationship to the Environment in “Float Copper”
Hidden amongst quiet, solitary weeks at Lake Superior in 2014, the concept of Float Copper began to bloom. This project became Nich Hance McElroy’s latest body of work. From delicate plays of light to vast landscapes, the camera became McElroy’s tool to understand the ever-changing rhythm of life juxtaposed with the long lasting geologic epochs we are living upon.
McElroy is influenced by how humans interact with our ecosystem and inhabit our earth. As a philosophy graduate, his work is focused on reality through the presence of time and place. Ironically, McElroy’s images have a particular stillness to them, a softness as if time has slowed and we are introduced to the beauty of these isolated surroundings.
Through his images he also shows the tender way he has created a sense of existence, documenting curves in a typically straight tree, and geometric lines in an otherwise starry sky.
In another image, a beaten up car has its windows covered in plastic. It is as if the car is breathing yet simultaneously suffocating from the inside. The reflection of the sun bouncing off the surface is the glimmer of hope, a connection back to the environment and natural surroundings.
There is a certain humanness to his work. Perhaps this is intentional; to help us understand the part we play upon the land. The streams we cross and the hills we climb; we are responsible for the landscapes we have carved.
Nich Hance McElroy has a talent of finding quiet moments in daily life and translating them into something deeper; his images beg each of us to question ourselves, and our relationship to the environment.
Float Copper is an ongoing body of work. To follow Nich Hance McElroy’s work visit his website.
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