HISTORY

TIM HAILAND IN A ROWBOAT ON THE NYMPHEA POND OF CLAUDE MONET'S WATER GARDEN GIVERNY
In 2012 I was awarded a residency, by my friend Beth DeWoody, to live and work at Claude Monet's home and garden in Giverny, France. I prefer to photograph my subjects outdoors in existing light, but due to the stormy weather of Normandy, I spent much of my time inside my room, contemplating the red and white design of the toile de Jouy wallpaper. In exploring this visual obsession further, I purchased a similar toile de Jouy wallpaper at the local home goods store in Vernon, my go to spot for most art supplies. I began to play with the wallpaper. The material aligned nicely with my ongoing interest in inside versus outside, or rather what “belongs” where, as classical toiles (as they are called) are an abstraction of pastoral scenes, which are designed for interiors. I started by photographing the wallpaper down in the water garden, draping it in the trees, I hung it out of my bedroom window. I also brought vines from the garden indoors to my studio and hung them up. None of these actions satisfied me, so I decided to print some of my portraits directly on the wallpaper itself. Now I felt I was on to something exciting! My contemporary subjects were able to mingle with and exist in the fictitious world of idealized classical pastoral abstractions of the toile de Jouy "reality", while collaborating with the readymade pattern of an anonymous designer. Collage has always been very much part of my practice - my previous series being "Photos re-photographed”, where I photographed my own printed works in various contexts, most often in a landscape, my preferred context. The photo of the photo becoming the finished art work.
THE RED ON WHITE TOILE DE JOUY WALLPAPERED ROOM IN WHICH TIM LIVED GIVERNY, WHICH WAS ALSO THE MOST DIRECT INFLUENCE ON THIS PHOTO ON TOILE DE JOUY BODY OF WORK