Imperfect Transcriptions

The 24 Études of Frédéric Chopin, for Monique

Photographs by David Gepp

Monday 18 October – Friday 19 November 2010 (Gallery 1 & 2)

Imperfect Transcriptions is a series of vivid colour photographs of grasses, gorse and meadow flowers shown alongside the poetry of RS Thomas and recordings of Chopin’s piano pieces, the 24 Études. The exhibition invites us to consider the intimate relationship of music with the natural environment and the deeper, sometimes intangible, issues of life.

David Gepp listened to the 24 Études of Chopin on the birthday of a friend who had died some months early and made the photographs as he walked with his dogs in Hafren forest. He writes: “What Chopin's music had confirmed and illuminated for me was the energy and interchange and relationship between the most seemingly disparate of things. It began with melancholy and beauty, complexity and simplicity, and, moving in some strange way, allowed me to see the world as perfect. And then even life and death seemed reconciled for a while.”

An exhibition from Oriel Davies, Newtown.