A fine aerial art photographer has used a drone to capture images of squash court for his latest work, inspired by his time at school.
The award-winning Australian photographer, based in New York, has released a new conceptual art series called Vacant, where he brings his fascination with surrealism and geometric art to his audience.
Walls first realised the idea for his project after visiting a squash court he used to play at in high school. Intrigued by the vast empty space and linework of the court, he was hooked.
“As an artist you are trying to push your work to the next level, finding the new scenes, testing the limits,” Walls explains. “A 20 sq m box using a drone was the next challenge. I was bound to crash.”
Walls is widely known for his Pools from Abovephotography project, where he used a drone to take images of swimming pools.
In creating Vacant, Walls set out to create a pure, clinical, retrofuturistic theme, using white and pops of red. He said: “To combat the claustrophobic nature of a squash court, I filled the space with as much white as possible, including the model’s wardrobe, to avoid the scenes becoming too ‘boxed in’.”
The futuro wardrobe the models are dressed in is used to contrast against the 1980s retro nature of the squash court. Walls says: “I’ve always enjoyed retrofuturism: the tension between the future and the past is intriguing. Movies like Gattaca, Blade Runner and Beyond the Black Rainbow have been pivotal in my understanding of the genre.”
As in Walls’s other series, he employs a similar choreographic style, opting for mid-movement static poses. “The movement direction is intended to be artificially detached from the environment,” he explains. “They tell a story, but I don’t want to give the whole story away – I like the idea of seduction within my work.”
Duplicity, symmetry of figures, and negative space is seen throughout the series – trademark compositing techniques that can be observed throughout Walls’s greater body of work.
He uses such techniques to carry out his vision of subtle geometry within his work. “Geometry provides a hint at consistency in an ever-inconsistent world,” he explains. “Innately, humans are drawn to it. Me, maybe more so.”
Brad Walls’s first book, ‘Pools from Above’, will be published in October. To learn more about Brad Walls and his fine art aerial photography, visit bradscanvas.com or his Instagram @bradscanvas
