'one taste: (n)ever-changing': Photographs by David Williams

Over recent years, photographer David Williams has established growing links with Japan, intermittently producing a variety of projects there, most notably the extended body of work ‘one taste: (n)ever-changing’ (2003-2007). This project explores the theme of Non-Duality and was undertaken at a number of Buddhist temple sites in Kyoto.

 

“The work on show at the Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation is from the series, ‘one taste: (n)ever changing’, and reflects my ongoing interest in Non-Duality (‘oneness’) within the context of contemporary visual art practice. In this respect, seriality plays a pivotal role as a means of presentation, questioning dualistic, inter-related notions of time, space and self. To some extent, the images on display can be seen, in their repetition, to represent forms of visual ‘mantra’ and owe something by way of their changing/never-changing presentation to their aural counterpart, serial music.

 

Given my interest in this theme, it seems particularly appropriate that ‘one taste: (n)ever-changing’ should be carried out in Japan and intimately connected with Buddhism, one of the world’s pre-eminent Non-Dual philosophies.

 

I continue to be fascinated by the resonances to be found between contemporary Western and ancient Eastern thinking. Whilst claiming no extensive expertise in Buddhism, I found it deeply inspiring to work within the parameters of a worldview with which I have considerable affinity, albeit from a Western perspective. Indeed one of the project’s aims is to fuse elements of Eastern thought with strategies of presentation more commonly found in Western contemporary art, such as seriality and typology.”

– David Williams

 

‘Photographs, especially groups of similar photographs, tend to demonstrate that time and space are not laws of physics but human metaphors invented to keep everything from happening all at once in the same place.’

– Rod Slemmons/ ‘Zeroing In’/ TYPOLOGIES

 

David Williams is an Edinburgh-based photographic artist whose work has been extensively exhibited in a range of international galleries including Osaka Contemporary Art Centre, Houston Fotofest, Ingleby Gallery (Edinburgh), National Galleries of Scotland, Photographers’ Gallery (London). He is the recipient of several awards and won the BBC Scotland 150 Years of Photography Prize. Williams’ work is held in numerous public and private collections including National Galleries of Scotland, National Media Museum, Victoria and Albert Museum, Fidelity Finance, Mehmet Dalman, and State Street Bank. David Williams is Head of Photography/Reader at Edinburgh College of Art.