"Bastard Countryside" is a phrase taken from Victor Hugo's novel Les Miserables, in which he describes the city of Paris as "amphibian", which means that it has two modes of existence, this is conveyed by the manmade buildings/structures being stretched out into the countryside and devouring everything in its path.
"I see the Bastard Countryside everywhere I go, I ran with this idea of city and countryside splattering into each other, creating this hybrid nature"
Friend decided to choose areas in which the urban and rural mix, the manmade and the natural, clashing and colliding to create a strange but new form of beauty and ugliness. He would photograph things such as huge trees entangled in pylons or windmills standing lonely on the edge of riverbanks.
He uses large-format colour film to scrutinise the in-between, unkempt, and often surreal marginal areas of the countryside highlighting frictions between the pastoral sublime and the discarded, often focusing on the polluted reality of the present. His work with the traditional landscape depicted from 5x4 photographs are given heightened effect through the exaggerations of colour and composition.
Information can be found at: https://www.bjp-online.com/2018/11/bastard-countryside-by-robin-friend/
Images can be found at: https://www.robinfriend.co.uk
Chudleigh, Pigment Print 152 x 190cm, 2005
Tower Blocks, East Reservoir, Pigment Print, 122 x 152cm, 2018
Dolly Engine Remains, Pigment Print, 122 x 152cm, 2006
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