Old Saumur 1905

David Young Cameron made this intaglio print, 'Old Saumur', using a painstaking process of etching to create a range of closely-toned blacks, greys, and whites. It's about as far from throwing paint at a canvas as you can get, but the slow, deliberate mark making says something about the nature of creativity itself. Cameron has a real eye for architecture; the image is really built from the ground up. Look at the way he renders the stone work, each brick has its own character, and yet they make up this harmonious whole. There is a real sense of depth here, of the city receding into the distance. The etching is both precise and atmospheric - he conveys the beauty of the city, but also its weight and history. Think of Piranesi's dramatic cityscapes of Rome, and you get some sense of the vision Cameron is enacting here. Art is always a conversation, a way of seeing, thinking, and experiencing the world, where there is space for multiple interpretations.