The World’s Smallest Gallery, One2Fifty.com
Jan Sun, 2012 
Soura Magazine 
News
No comments yet
The only way to thoroughly appreciate most artwork is in person, however this is easier said than done. Here I am experimenting with some ideas to visually represent my work across the web. In the 1:50 gallery, I am attempting to reflect the overall finished size of my work on a 17 inch computer screen. Here I am experimenting with some ideas to visually represent my work across the web. On the 1:50 gallery I am attempting to reflect the overall finished size of my work on computer screens, tablet devices and smart phones.
My images are normally between two and three meters wide, which can cause difficulty when trying to show the scale in certain situations. By reproducing my large format work on a scale of 1:50 and placing it in a virtual gallery with people scaled to size to represent the average viewer, I hope to impart the sheer scale and size of the images. Whilst I acknowledge the best way to view art is in person, I also recognizes, for my work, this isn’t as easy as it sounds. The very nature of my work scale plays an important factor: hanging the images in the wrong space, either too big or too small has a detrimental effect on, not only the image, but how the image makes you feel.
Galleries spend a great deal of time and money on trying to get this aspect right and this started me thinking about how I could create the most perfect gallery to hang my work, and also to show the actual size and scale of the work in relation to the people viewing it. With One2Fifty.com I’ve scaled everything down from three meters to seven centimeters in an attempt to reflect the overall finished size of my work on a computer screen.
I have been pondering this issue for many years now and hope that by scaling everything down and using architectural scale figures, which are 36 mm tall you can better visualize the overall scale
of my finished work.
In an exclusive interview with Soura Magazine, David Anthony Hall shares with us his vision, his process, and the idea behind One2Fifty.com
What first attracted you to landscape photography?
I’ve always had a strong connection to the land, in my childhood we would regularly go hiking, camping, hunting and fishing. As a teenager my interest lay in the monuments and scars man has left on the landscape, I would visit ruins of all shapes and sizes and wonder what the story was behind them. When I graduated from art school I worked as a still life photographer, I had total control over my subject in some ways it’s a characteristic of the human condition to want to be in control. This ultimately brought me back to the land. I have no control over nature and I accept that. I have to work closely with the elements and it gives me a huge sense of accomplishment and fulfillment when by luck, intent or design I find myself in the right place at the right time. It gives me the feeling that the elements are working with me supporting me in my endeavors.
Is your work in large format panoramic images an attempt to capture the vastness of the landscapes you photograph?
Yes, but also it demands attention in a very obvious and yet simple way. The scale of my panoramic images aims to stop people in their tracks, to capture ones peripheral vision when viewed from a distance compelling the viewer to take a closer look and then on even closer to pick out the finer details. With this three-stage approach it has been suggested I’m creating a window for the viewer and inviting them to climb through. As an artist I try to capture a single moment that inspires feelings of a lifetime. I want my photographs to portray the very essence of a place and evoke a journey that creates a sense of something more. When I photograph a location it is because I feel a strong emotional connection to the place. I witness the strength; feel the frailty or simply the serenity of nature. In modern day society, it is easy to lose touch with nature in its simplest sense. My work constantly reminds me of how fleeting our presence actually is on the planet, but also why we must embrace it so.
For someone who is passionate about space and history and monumental-size trees, what drew you to shrink your work by a scale of 1:50 to create the smallest large format print gallery?
By exploring the relationship between large format print, photography and the Internet, I finally solved how to best visualize the overall scale of my finished work on the web. I have some grand plans to do some really huge public art pieces; this year’s concept garden at the Chelsea Flower Show is the first step on that road. I have a personal ambition to cover a London Underground platform from end to end with some of my woodland images and the only way I’ve been able to visualize what the final installation might look like was to scale the images up and superimpose them onto pictures of the underground. It was during this process that I realized my ambitions to go really big resulted in the opposite: working for the World’s Smallest Gallery.
What role does the Internet play in the world’s smallest large format print gallery?
Exquisite, quite simply the One2Fifty gallery is the perfect place to best show my work online. It’s the perfect gallery, bright, open, clean lines, crisp with lovely smooth walls on which to exhibit my artwork. There are very few actual galleries that are as well suited! The Internet adds another dimension in that it makes my work available to everyone worldwide who has a smart phone, computer or tablet device. I’m constantly looking to the future looking for ways to exhibit my work so that more people can see it and enjoy it. As I’ve gone from group show to art fair to better art fair and solo show to solo show I find better opportunities opening up. I find my work in better spaces in better galleries so the work is being exposed to more and more people.
Public exhibition is very much on my agenda, I realize that the prices my work achieve coupled with inflation has excluded the majority
of the population from owning on of my pictures but that shouldn’t mean people can’t view and enjoy my work. I did a bit of research just now and I’ve estimated that with 40 art fairs 22 group shows as well as multiple solo shows my work has been exposed to a potential audience in the region of half a million people across 14 countries. By comparison my online presence connects me with a further 137,000 potential art lovers.
Is there a message behind the world’s smallest large format print gallery?
I get dizzy when I think about the earth as it spins round the sun, tilting on it’s axis causing the seasons and the moon orbiting the earth causing the oceans to ebb and flow. I get even dizzier when I consider the universe and the hundreds of millions of years since the ‘Big Bang’ or the three million years since Bipedal apes walked upright and the mere seventy thousand year since Homo Sapiens began showing signs of abstract and creative thought.
How is it that we can casually talk about time in terms of billions of years? We can quite nonchalantly mark time in millennia, centuries, decades, years, yet it’s the hours, minutes, and even seconds that our existence comes down to in the end. I relive these significant hours, minutes, and heartbeats in the places where I make my pictures.
Will the One2Fifty.com project be an ongoing work?
Yes indeed I have been looking at doing some major building work adding a new wing and opening up the gallery to other artists to put on their own solo shows with a 3D interactive ‘walk through’ navigation experience so watch this space!
What will you be working on next?
My work is ongoing this is what I do and I love it. I try to steer clear of project based work or photo-essays. I don’t want to politicize or dramatize my photographs. However I would like to continue to push the technical boundaries of the medium of photography, as the sheer size of my work increases the natural development is to move outside, I’m working on a couple of installations in hospitals and hospices where the aim is for my pictures to have a positive effect on the staff, visitors and most importantly the patients. One such project is set to be the largest public display of my work and will be my most significant achievement ever! Studies show that nature based art has a beneficial effect on relieving a patient’s stress and anxiety and I’m fully committed to using my work in this context.