We welcome Lee Stitt and his series 'Grey Matter', a body of work photographically investigating ideas behind musical stimuli and the intrinsic feelings stimulated by an affective musical response.
In the winter nights I would visit the forest while listening to music repeatedly played on a loop through headphones. Isolated in thought I would wonder in the darkness searching in the vastness of the landscape for imagery that was thoughtfully considered with the music in mind.
Before long the woodland became a distraction from the realities of life during a time when my father was ill. Although it was a place with little interruptions I began to become inattentive to my surroundings. Occupied by apprehension, I was becoming conscious of the darkness that was surrounding me physically and mentally. Consequently, my relationship to the music quickly changed as my father later passed away.
Absent from the forest for a year; my observations of the work started to become challenged by the weight of memories. The music now harbored emotions that transcended my initial experience. I returned to the familiarity of the forest again but with different expectations. It was necessary for me to re-interpret the landscape and produce imagery intuitively. It was now about exploring with purpose. With closure in mind I focused on my attachment to the landscape by drawing upon my own awareness of the associated sensory memories and the personal significance the music had now come to hold.
Music: Andrew Bird. Beyond the valley of the three white horses.
BIO
Born 1991 in Northern Ireland, Lee Stitt studied photography at the Belfast School of Art; University of Ulster and graduated in 2014. For Northern Irish photographer Stitt, the photographic exploration of sound in his work plays an underpinning role as he uses it as a source of inspiration and a catalyst for experimentation. What often transpires within his work is a curiosity in producing conceptual possibilities around the fragility of sound and historically the silent medium of photography.
For more from our Digital Encounters Ideas Series, click here.
For more of Lee’s work, click here.
