I recently moved back to the region where I was born in the north of England. The hills and valleys have a rich history that remains under the foliage of the woodlands. In the 8th Century, the English monk and historian, The Venerable Bede, described this ancient Celtic kingdom as Silva Elmete: The Forest of Elmet. Shan shui Hua (山水画) is a style of traditional Chinese landscape painting that depicts natural scenes, including mountains, water and waterfalls. Reading these artworks the eye is taken out of Western perspective and into a two-dimensional space that moves through time as the journey unravels vertically and horizontally along symbolic paths, bridges, rocks and trees in the visual journey through the landscape. My interest in this ancient school of painting has influenced what I look for in my walks with my camera: the motifs, composition, focus and framing.

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About
Simon Dent is a British artist. He studied BA Fine Art at Newcastle Polytechnic from 1984 to 1987 and MA Fine Art from 1989 to 1991 after which he moved to Valencia, Spain, returning to England in 2013. His work has been exhibited at The Photographers’ Gallery, London, Impressions Gallery, York, and in many group shows including Towards a Bigger Picture at the Victoria & Albert Museum and Tate Liverpool. Dent’s work has been published in several contemporary photography magazines including Creative Camera (1988), Aperture (1988), Camera Austria (1991), Uncertain States (2019) and Landscape Stories (2020). His photographs are in various collections including the Victoria & Albert Museum as well as many private collections across Europe.