About the Work
The subtitle for this piece was 'Portrait of the Artist's Wife'. It was photographed at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich Park, London. In the centre, holidaymakers stand astride the Prime Meridian of the world, the GMT line from which all time and distance on earth has been traditionally calibrated. They stand one foot in the east, the other in the west, taking note of Great Britain's geographic and historic place in the world, and maybe its strategic one. I photographed the GMT line several times and made it up into a giant circle. This represents the earth as a globe, or timepiece, or wheel of fortune. The four panoramas flanking this circle represent the earth as flat, with four corners. Each panorama shows the Royal Park of Greenwich, with London beyond. I deliberately photographed different aged people in each of these panoramas. As in 'Britain through the Looking Glass', these are intended to represent our life cycle. In the 12.00 noon position of the centre circle is a photograph of my former wife Gillian flanked by photographs of our daughter and myself.
Both 'Britain through the Looking Glass' and 'Greenwich Mean Time' were an attempt to express my personal feeling about family and life in the country we were to leave in 1984.
″I still use the same approach to my work: I get an idea, think of the title and then make the work. So not much has changed since 1964″
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