That Crack in the Wall of Reality / Kingsley Ifill

In conversation with Kingsley Ifill

Sometimes life must be allowed to unfold — even from a distance — before a work reveals its final form. A portrait is, first and foremost, a study of the soul: an observation, a relationship, a psychological exchange that transcends technique. In this dialogue, Kingsley Ifill offers a glimpse into his vision — an intimate conversation with photography and time, where memory, past and present, material interferences and layered textures converge. His images emerge from a raw, tactile reality, where black and white become fissures and contrasts, opening silent passages into the depths of human experience.

Art, in all its forms, brings a fragment to light and sparks reflection on everything that remains outside the frame. What must a moment possess to stand out among countless others and become material for your art?

It changes, from image to image, day to day, depending on the moment. I find myself less and less in pursuit of any kind of reason, or why or how. Ultimately, some form of emotion must be embedded within the image. A spark that crackles and spits itself forth from the ember of a burning log. Like a time capsule to store a feeling. A mark that makes itself. Lodged, with the possibility of endless return, evolving with each rotation. Ripening with the sun, yet failing to fade.

How important is temporal context to you? Is art an anchor in time or a way to transcend it? Do you prefer images suspended between memory and present, or do you believe a clear temporal setting is essential to fully understanding your work?

As a kid, from a young age, I’d go fishing with my father on small boats in the North Sea. Just off the coast of Kent. I still go out with him occasionally. The boats usually have two types of anchor: a heavy version, that once dropped, will keep the boat secure in a single place, and then a lighter anchor, that will drag across the seabed and allow the boat to move with the pace of the tide. All the great artists that have inspired me personally were more like the latter — weighty but lighter anchors, that were able to continue moving with the tide. Going with the flow. There’s no avoiding the present moment in which we find ourselves, but true art is both universal and transcends the moment in which it was formed. Relatable to the human experience, without an expiration date.

“…A spark that crackles and spits itself forth from the ember of a burning log.”

H KI0009 The Coat & the Nail on Which It Hangs

L-01-Blue-Roan-installation-view.-©Kingsley-Ifill.-Courtesy-the-artist-and-Hannah-Barry-Gallery-London-UK.-Photography-©Damian-Griffiths

Your photography has the roughness of a scar and the softness of skin: it conveys vivid, visceral, deeply human emotions. How do you experience the intensity of the moment while shooting? Is there one image in particular that holds a strong emotional charge for you — one that still stirs something inside you whenever you look at it?

There’s a photo I have of my father’s hand, taken at my grandfather’s funeral. On a table, alongside a pint of Guinness, with the liquid half gone. It was taken, and I developed the film shortly after, but at the time, I only made a contact sheet of the full roll. Nothing more — no prints, or scans. So the image sat inside a folder for just over 10 years, until I rediscovered it and made a print during lockdown. This is quite an extreme example of what I’m trying to describe, but this is often the case. It’s hard to see when you’re inside the very thing that you’re attempting to view. It takes time and distance to gain a perspective or understanding. Sometimes it’s months, occasionally it’s years. But it can’t be rushed or forced. In terms of the actual experience of life in the moment, I’m simply just photographing whatever is around me and attempting to do so in the most honest form I know. Without any intentions. Which I then make sense of later down the line and build upon in the studio and darkroom.

Art often stems from an inner urgency, something pressing to be expressed. Have there been moments when you weren’t given a voice, and art became a necessary outlet, a way to make yourself heard?

I’ve always liked that saying, “actions speak louder than words.” Ultimately, it’s one long conversation with yourself and not necessarily with words. Sure, I definitely had years or decades of tough times and feeling as if I wasn’t being heard. But in all honesty, in reflection, I probably couldn’t hear myself at those points yet either. A voice is found or formed through persistence and that inner urgency to externalise and materialise thoughts or emotions into the physical realm. It takes time and patience. It comes in different forms too, attempting to decipher the language of self. I can remember finishing Maggie Nelson’s book The Argonauts, and having a strong desire to take a photograph or portray what I had just read, in some way. But I didn’t know where to start. And I wouldn’t even be able to explain to you in words now how I felt at that time. It was foreign, but at the same time completely familiar. Like a pure feeling of understanding and love for another’s experience. It took a while and some beating around the bush, then eventually I got there. Found the ground after beating around the bush. And the result is a work titled Argo, shown in my recent solo exhibition in London at Hannah Barry Gallery.

“Like a time capsule to store a feeling. A mark that makes itself.”

In both your work and daily life, how do instinct and impulse balance with reflection and contemplation?

I enjoy contrast. Everything and then nothing. Ups and downs, however they come. As Cartier-Bresson wisely said, “Simply live, and life will give you photos.” I like to go out into the world, but then, just like film, I need to sit in the developing tank and process for a while in order to understand what I’ve just done or seen. Then go out and do it again…

Life is a constant relationship with what surrounds us. In this symbiosis between you and the outside world, where do you feel most authentic: in silent dialogue with a human face, or in solitude with material matter?

There’s no preference, it’s more a matter of balance, with both relying on the other.

If someone were to create a portrait, capturing a moment that frames your essence, your soul, how would you imagine it? What kind of shot would it be? And if it were a painting, what materials, colours and atmosphere would it need to truly represent you?

Sea water caught and stored in an old jam jar, then thrown back into the sea.
Painted by Turner, using his toes instead of brushes and whatever pigments he had to hand, or foot.

You move effortlessly between very different contexts, without adhering to rigid categories. In this constant interaction with vastly different worlds, is there an anecdote, positive or negative, amusing or uncomfortable, that left a strong impression on you and that you’d be willing to share?

I had a situation for a few years where I thought someone had put a hex or spell on me using birds. Which evidently is now hopefully over. Yet I still don’t understand. I was leaving my apartment in England for months at a time to go live elsewhere, and four times in a row, I’d return to something bird-related to greet me home. Firstly, it was a bird skeleton in the walkway to my front door. No feathers, delicate, all bone. Then the second time, I found a dead bird in the closed log burner. It must have fallen down the chimney and got me suspicious of any connection to the first skeleton from before. Third time, I thought I may have lost my mind. I got home, arriving with the wonder if any dead birds would be waiting. None to be found at first glance. Stress over. But then I started noticing bird excretion all over the flat. On the kitchen side, the sofa, the table, the bed. Not tonnes, but little droppings. Say 20 in total. But no birds to be found and the doors/windows had definitely been locked. After about an hour of wondering if I was hallucinating, I made some phone calls, and it turned out that it could have been a swallow, which may have come in under the old wooden entrance door. Possibly sussing out if it could turn my apartment into its nest. Fourth time, I couldn’t believe what was going on. I got back, and no dead birds, no bird shit. Instead, a thin layer of black soot over everything. I live in a small space, so when I say everything, the soot didn’t need to travel far in order to cover the whole place. Anyway, again, I’m confused, wondering how this could be bird-related. And as I look at the log burner, with my memory jogged of the bird found there previously, I see a living sparrow sitting behind the glass, looking at me. And the small air vent open. I guessed the soot was from the panic of flapping wings. Must have fallen down the chimney again. To cut a longer story short, I slid open the windows of my flat, then opened the door of the log burner. The small sparrow flew around for a bit, acted like it didn’t want to leave, despite the windows being open, and then eventually did fly away. And thankfully this was the end to bird drama until… Until around a year or so later, I was living in Paris and having a bit of a rough time in my personal life. One morning I awoke from a dream where a black bird was pecking away at a dead white bird. I sort of woke up, shook it off, but the image stayed with me. So I decided to go for a walk, as I often did to clear my head. And as I’m strolling down the street, wondering to myself if I should just throw in the towel and leave Paris for good, I then see in real life a black crow pecking away at a dead white bird in the road for breakfast, right in front of me. I quickly reached into my pocket for my camera and got a photo or two. I soon after left Paris and made the photograph into a platinum palladium print with a carved frame, which was shown recently in London.

“I enjoy contrast. Everything and then nothing. Ups and downs, however they come.”

Is there something about your way of being that has never really been understood by others? An aspect that has remained hidden, but which is essential to who you are?

I’m sure that everyone keeps a certain part of themselves private. And that that private side is essential to each one’s being. But not everything needs to be understood. Rocks don’t need to ask the rain why it’s wet.

Have you reached a full awareness of yourself as both artist and individual, or do you still feel in a phase of transformation? Is there a creative territory you sense remains unexplored and that you wish to venture into?

Feelings of satisfaction and fulfilment are fleeting. They come, go, and then it’s on to the next. The truth is that there are a billion doors I’d love to go knock on, but each of us only has time for a few. I’m not so interested in trying to make out what lays upon or beyond the horizon. I’m simply focusing on continuing to keep putting one foot in front of the other. And often that involves going backwards rather than forwards. I started working with wet plate collodion recently. I’d like to explore that further, along with some of the other pioneering processes which seem to have been forgotten with time. Like I said, actions speak louder than words, so I’ll stop talking here and get back to work…