The Portal (Medium) Photograph - Limited Edition of 5

Reinterpreting the landscape as a stage for mysterious incidents combining elements from dreams, nightmares and occasionally true stories Occupying a space between reality and fiction Toby de Silva’s Nemesis project searches out mysterious locations reimagining them as places of curiosity, fear and tension that suggests a fantasy shadow world Referencing the dreamlike sensations that permeate works by Bosch and Bruegel and the imaginations of Arthur Tress, Duane Michals and Joel Peter Witkin, de Silva’s sets out with intentions of illustrating the uncanny by proposing inexplicable events and alternate geographies. The familiar and the serene are scarred with what Barthes described as Punctom, disrupting the sanctity of the image and questioning its intentions. As Jeff Wall recounts events and Gregory Crewdson finds unease in the sanctuary of suburbia, de Silva employs allegory and metaphor alongside anxieties like solitude, incapacity, blindness, fire, death and monsters to reinterpret his surroundings The images are constructed by revisiting scenes of intrigue during the desolate early hours, taking multiple images which are then combined to produce one perfect large format background image. Later returning to the scene with the various actors and props to add in the choreographed tableau elements that explore the themes prevalent throughout his work like dread, mortality and increasingly, the uncanny to complete the story whilst simultaneously leaving opportunities for the viewer to assume their own narrative