'By siting an image in the presence of its subject, you expose technical problems, stylistic concerns. You are aware of the questionable status of the image .... You are implicated in its success or failure.'

David Harbott's work sets up an encounter between the hand-made image and its subject, a dialogue between the composed and the real. He exposes how images are structured rather than copied to achieve a decorative effect through compositional and pictorial devices. Prompting enquiry into the 'picturesque', David's work also exposes the landscape itself as an artefact - man-made, just as representations of 'landscape' are man-made.

At Middle Rocombe, David has developed an approach to site-specific picture-making begun in London, locating work in relation to its subject in order to prompt enquiry into representation and what is represented. Working for the first time in ostensibly a rural idyll has stimulated a new critique of landscape.

David's choice of materials associated more often with agriculture than landscape painting - fence posts, angle iron, sheet metal, and enamel paint - root the objects in the farming context. For him, this is crucial: 'these materials put up resistance to quick art-historical verdicts and connections.'

davidharbott@hotmail.com