Van Gogh and Giles Duley's polaroid

It's one of those moments when the world snaps into focus. I'm standing in the National Gallery looking Van Gogh's, a wheatfield with cypresses. As I look closely on the left-hand side, I notice the paint doesn't go to the edge. You can see the canvas, now darkened with age, showing through.

It seems ridiculous to say now, I obviously knew on an intellectual level that Van Gogh, the man, handled that canvas, that he applied the paint. But on some other level my brain screamed, 'he touched that canvas'! Just as I could reach out and touch it now. This man, Vincent Van Gogh, I'd studied, read about, obsessed over, stood where I'm standing! I turn around, Rembrant is behind me, I know that Willem de Kooning is waiting for me in the next room. That moment, that physical connection changed the way I thought about art.

Although photography has been my obsession for nearly the last twenty years, it isn't like that. There isn't that same physical connection with the artist, there's a chemical or digital process that gets in the way - except for Polaroid. Giles Duley took this actual Polaroid in Mosul, Iraq, in 2019. On one day in November, Giles was on this street, this image came out of the camera, and he handled it - that, for me, is an incredibly powerful connection.

Giles continues to work on his Legacy of War project and raise funds for the Legacy of War Foundation. Read more about it on the website.