Polly Tootal

Biography

Polly Tootal is a British photographer with a distinctive approach to landscapes. In contrast to the usual scenes, her photographs capture anonymous places that we pass by every day without paying any attention to them, spaces that are quickly forgotten despite their familiarity. This apparent banality is at the heart of her work. Polly Tootal seeks to establish a unique visual cartography of modern Britain.

She uses medium and large format cameras, which makes her creative process particularly slow. Each image is the result of close observation, revealing a meticulous visual performance. Her photographs are stripped back, without embellishment: a stain on a wall or rubbish in a corner are captured in their raw state. The artist does not seek to aesthetise these places, but to reveal their reality as it is.

Before dawn, Polly Tootal travels the length and breadth of Britain in search of these little-known landscapes, observing everything we see or could see but have often overlooked. Her instinct plays a crucial role in choosing her subjects. Once she has chosen a location, she settles down and waits for the perfect moment to capture the essence of the place in all its simplicity.

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