Pathfinder 1
Archival print on Hahnemühle Photo Rag Metallic
120 x 80 cm, Edition of 6 + 1 AP
84.1 x 59.4 cm, Edition of 6 + 1 AP
48.3 x 32.9 cm, Edition of 6 + 1 AP
84.1 x 59.4 cm, Edition of 6 + 1 AP
48.3 x 32.9 cm, Edition of 6 + 1 AP
Widening Circles is a photographic series that explores abstractions in the natural world. Wingfield purposefully removes the traditional visual guidelines of landscape photography: there are no horizons, mountains, or coastlines in sight. Instead, she frames and zooms in until her photographs become abstract. It is challenging to get a sense of scale, as Wingfield leaves no reference points for the mind to cling on to. Instead, she exposes and releases the brain’s instinct to name , to make sense or to explain in a rational way. She invites us to linger on the threshold of our imagination.
The series is a visual dialogue with Rainer Maria Rilke’s poem “Widening Circles” from The Book of Hours. The poem concludes by saying, “I’ve been circling for thousands of years, and I still don’t know: am I a falcon, a storm, or a great song?” The notion of circling pervades Wingfield’s photographs, as curves collapse and fall in on each other, with no discernible beginning or end. The images look like waterfalls, eruptions, depressions, plunging the viewer into a rush of colour. They compel us to surrender to the uncontrollable flow of living. As Wingfield says, “One is invited to accept that there is no absolute in this life, and that we navigate through its many illusions.”
Rilke’s poem says, “I live my life in widening circles … I may not complete this last one, but I give myself to it.” The Widening Circles series transmits the same sense of acceptance. By removing all recognisable outlines, Wingfield hopes to “induce the viewer to let go of any certainty and expand his or her inner world.” The photographs are not about travelling to a specific place; they are about travelling to a space that already exists within our soul.
Wingfield resits giving too much detail about the precise site where her photographs were taken. Sometimes, she doesn’t even mention the location at all. She explains, “My intention is not to capture a particular spot, but rather to trigger the imagination.” In response, we may choose to disregard the exact location. Some would call this “remaining in the dark,” but for Wingfield, this is very much remaining “in the light.” She believes that the unknown offers a realm of swirling possibilities that far exceeds what reality can offer us. Her practice thus engages with the age-old philosophical debate about what is more beautiful: knowledge or the unknown. This debate is often summed up in one question: is a rainbow more beautiful when you understand the process of light refraction that causes it, or when it remains an unexplained phenomenon? In other words, do mysteries lose their beauty when they are solved?
In an “age of science,” Wingfield’s photographs remind us that there is much beauty to be found in the places that can never be fully grasped, and the things that can never be definitively understood. She seeks to “plant a seed in order to change the way we look at the world.” so that we “can see and hear more clearly what is already there but is simply concealed by the noise of our busy lives.” Wingfield reminds us that the planet is a painted canvas or a beautifully ornamented sculpture if we look carefully enough.