Tim Veling
Pre-Marital Bliss
PETER IRELAND
TIM J VELING Untitled from Pre-marital Bliss series 2008 Pigment print, 152 x 190 mm.
Tim Veling’s 50-part series Pre-Marital Bliss had its origins in 2008 at a pivotal time in the photographer’s life. Recently graduated from the Ilam art school he was having to work hard to make a living and forge a stable life for himself and his partner. Unable to 'hit the streets' with his camera he was forced 'to take photos around the house just to keep up the practice and stay acquainted with the technology'. It was 'one of those projects that grew organically, without a preconceived conceptual idea or intent'.
Veling continues the story: 'During this time I would shoot a roll every other day of 120 film then put it in a can in the fridge. When the can was full – it would hold about 40 rolls – I’d send them all off to process. One entire batch was ruined at the lab. For six months I didn’t look at the proofs. One day, in frustration with myself for not being productive, I looked through them and scanned the ones I liked. It became obvious pretty quickly that these photos, when edited and sequenced together, described something of what I was feeling about my place in life and more importantly my growing relationship'.
The ramshackle origins of this compelling series have allowed for a strongly personal content, devoid of any kind of voyeurism, making it a stand-out series in contemporary New Zealand photography. The medium’s assumed connection with what’s called reality has taken a battering over the past couple of decades – Postmodern theory colliding with new digital opportunities – but Veling’s series is a refreshing reminder of just what photography can do uniquely. The great American choreographer Agnes de Mille used to rub her thumb and two forefingers together and speak of 'saltiness'.
Veling’s images form the dots, but we as viewers are called upon to do the joining, the spaces between as important as the string connecting the beads. Depicting something as potent and perhaps as volatile as a relationship is a slippery business, and doing it consciously inevitably carries the baggage of agendas. The great thing about Pre-Marital Bliss is that Veling wasn’t even trying. There’s nothing mawkish, sensational or exploitative in this sequence. Just a touching intimacy celebrating tiny moments of attachment, marking those 'spaces between' where the possibility of failure acts like a necklace of spikes, keeping the parties alert to the perils of assumption and sentimentality. Veling’s extreme commonplaces are little bolts from the blue.
Tim J Veling was born in Masterton in 1980. In 2006 he graduated first class Masters in Fine Arts from Christchurch’s Ilam School of Fine Arts, where he remains a visiting lecturer in photography. The complete Pre-Marital Bliss series should be viewed on www.timjveling.com
TIM J VELING Untitled from Pre-marital Bliss series 2008 Pigment print, 190 x 152 mm.
TIM J VELING Untitled from Pre-marital Bliss series 2008 Pigment print, 152 x 190 mm.
TIM J VELING Untitled from Pre-marital Bliss series 2008 Pigment print, 152 x 190 mm.
TIM J VELING Untitled from Pre-marital Bliss series 2008 Pigment print, 190 x 152 mm.
TIM J VELING Untitled from Pre-marital Bliss series 2008 Pigment print, 152 x 190 mm.
TIM J VELING Untitled from Pre-marital Bliss series 2008 Pigment print, 190 x 152 mm.