Idris Khan
[Artist, b. 1978, Birmingham, England, lives in London.]
A lot of people in the art world hate to use the word “Photoshop” like it’s cheating or easy or something. I say bollocks to that. For me, it’s my tool, my paintbrush if you like, and lets me create my own visual language.
I try and grasp the essence of a particular work, fuck about with it on the computer, and then display all the essence of a complete work on the wall.
...don’t be put off by someone telling you that your image looks too digital; maybe that’s the way it’s supposed to look.
The photograph is a tool used to take you back to a certain point in one’s life, to remember a face or a place you once stood. I feel there is always something quite melancholic about a photograph.
Recently, I can’t seem to take a straight photograph without thinking that what I am photographing won’t be the final image—like the world in front of me is not good enough or something.
It is hard to avoid the aspect of time when producing what ones sees as a photograph.... my images [are] something that is not a frozen moment, but an image made up of many moments and that is created over time rather than taken.
