Sea is mystery, a vast area of unexplored, uncharted territory where the true nature of our planet is exposed. From minimal sea sky horizons to explosive breaking waves, the sea has been the primary inspiration and subject matter for Tim E Whites fine art practice. His recent ‘Saccadic Light’ series shifts focus slightly to the transition between land and sea and what might be seen as a boundary between relatively known and unknown worlds. From vast open vistas to more intimate spaces Tim’s images aim to inspire and elevate the perception of the observer – Evoking the sensation of being immersed in the landscape with a boundlessness that references the notion of the sublime.

White describes his work as anti-paredolian – Where paredolia is the search for the recognisable in nature he is drawn to abstraction and minimalism. The viewer is often confronted by an image of profound dimension whilst simultaneously being drawn to the flat surface of the photograph, perhaps examining the act of image making itself and the somewhat paradoxical relationship between real and pictorial space.

Throughout history humanity has been captivated and entranced by the meditative relative calm of the sea sky horizon. A vision that has remained a constant, unchanging, shared with our primordial ancestors. It might be said that today in this noise filled, chaotic world this obsession has never been so profound. With his flattening of the photographic space and reduction of detail Tim aims to convey through pure colour and form some of this primal response to landscape. A drift into pure abstraction is only prevented by the textured traces of waves, clouds and land that emerge as little more than brushstrokes upon the picture plane. This strategy of image making is inspired by a rich inheritance of reductive aesthetics from Turner to Rothko. By its very nature photography involves abstraction, or the reduction of human vision to a two-dimensional representation. This compression of pictorial space, places us in what Gaston Bachelard termed 'intimate immensity’ where the space of the personal and the universal blend.

Tim prefers to shoot landscape he has a personal connection to or feels particularly inspired by. The UK’s South Coast, in particular East Sussex, has been his main focus returning again and again before finally settling here in 2018. Other significant locations include the Scottish Highlands and Iceland.