Nadav Kander
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Works in Series
Dark Line – The Thames Estuary
Water III, part 1, 2 & 3 (Shoeburyness towards The Isle Of Grain), England, 2015
Water XVIII (Shoeburyness towards Mulberry Defenses and on to Grain Power Station), England, 2015
Water V (Hadleigh Ray towards Yantlet Creek and The Hoo), England, 2015
Water VI (Hadleigh Ray towards Yantlet Creek and The Hoo), England, 2015
Water II (Shoeburyness towards The Isle Of Grain), England, 2015
Water XXI (Shoebury towards Grain Power Station), England, 2015
Water XVII (Southend towards Phoenix Caisson Mulberry Harbour), England, 2015
Horizons III (Hadleigh Ray towards Canvey Island), England, 2015
Water I, part 1, 2 & 3 (Shoeburyness towards The Isle Of Grain), England, 2015
Water XX (Shoeburyness towards The Isle Of Sheppey), England, 2016
Water XXVI (Shoeburyness towards The Isle Of Grain), England, 2021
Untitled I, part 1, 2, & 3 (Defenses), England, 2015
Time IV, part 1 & 2 (Alpha Wharf towards Tilbury), England, 2016
Water XII (Grain Marshes towards Elphinstone Point), England, 2015
Water XXIII (Great Chalk Fleet Towards Kings North Power Station), England, 2016
Water XIV (Stoke Great Fleet towards River Medway), England, 2015
Horizons XII (Sheerness towards Red Sands Fort), England, 2016
Horizons XVI (Shoeburyness towards The Isle Of Sheppey), England, 2021
Horizons XVII (Southend-on-Sea towards Ostend), England, 2021
Concrete I (The Hundred Of Hoo towards Damhead Creek Power Station), England, 2016
Time II, 'Watch Over Me' (Allhallows towards Canvey Island), England, 2015
Silt I (Mucking towards Thames Haven), England, 2017
Horizons XIII (Sheerness Towards Red Sands Fort), England, 2016
Water IV (Warden on Sheerness towards Foulness Island), England, 2016
Horizons X, 'River Styx' (Rochester towards The Medway and The Nore), England, 2015
Untitled VIII, England, 2016
Water XI (Mucking towards Stanford-le-Hope), England, 2017
Water XXIV (Mucking Towards DP Gateway Port), England, 2017
Horizons II (Allhallows towards London Gateway Port), England, 2015
Time I (Cliffe Fort towards Tilbury Power Station), England, 2016
Untitled III, part 1 & 2, England, 2016
Water XV, 'Sleep' (Cockleshell Beach towards The Nore and on to Foulness), England, 2015
Water XVI, 'Sleep' (Cockleshell Beach towards The Nore and on to Foulness), England, 2015
Horizons XIV, Where River Meets Sea (Isle Of Grain Towards Red Sands Fort), England, 2016
Horizons XV, Where River Meets Sea (Isle Of Grain Towards Red Sands Fort), England, 2016
Horizons I (Coalhouse Fort towards St Mary Hoo), England, 2015
Untitled VI, England, 2015
Horizons XI, 'Dark Line' (Coalhouse Fort towards Cooling), England, 2015
Water XXV (Middle Stoke towards London Thamesport and on to The Swale), England, 2019
Untitled IV, part 1, 2 & 3, England, 2015
Horizons XXV, 'The Church' (Coalmouth Creek Marshes towards Kingsnorth Power Station), England, 2015
Silt II (Grain Gun Tower towards Southend-on-Sea), England, 2016
Water VIII (Cliffe Pools towards The Fort), England, 2016
Water IX (Cliffe Pools Towards London Gateway Port), England, 2016
Dark Line – The Thames Estuary

Estuary
When alone, there is nowhere I'd rather be than beside large bodies of slow moving water. I feel myself, quiet and alive as emotions come and go. Travelling to the estuary in the dark, often alone, and returning home at nightfall has affected how I see this place - not as a geographical landscape, but as a mystical space, somehow otherworldly and full of intrigue.

Studio
My studio in the very early hours is another place of great solitude. Rising early, I often find myself working for hours before it gets light. The greater majority of the image-creation process happens here; it takes a good picture to make a good print, but it's what happens in the studio that is most decisive.

Cycle
Treating the river as a metaphor for the perpetual cycle of change and renewal, my editing process echoes this slow pace. Revisiting previously finished prints many times to reflect changing rhythms within the series, I can refine a single image for months until it starts to take shape on paper. Lengthy exposures, layering, and over-printing evoke the sense of concealment I experience near expanses of dark water. It is this element of the unknown that both moves me and frightens me. As a sequence of images evolves, the separate elements gradually fit together creating a cadence of both transition and harmony.

Place
I could not have made this work anywhere else. Taking starting points from historic sites such as disused artillery forts, and locations from texts by Conrad or Dickens, these images invoke the past through their attachment to place but they also point to the future through the onward trajectory of the river. The traces of human life left behind in the silt of the riverbed play a huge part in how I work within this landscape, processing the river's rich history of invasion, settlement and commerce as I walk along the banks.

Body
Hanging vertically and low to the ground, these framed prints mirror bodily proportions. Composed at varying heights, the horizon line offers a subjective or symbolic point of contact between two expanses; you look up and see the heavens and down you see the earth. I invite the viewer to physically approach each work as a place in which to feel.

Home
Compared to Yangtze – The Long River, a previous series I made in China, Dark Line – The Thames Estuary paradoxically adopts a closer relationship to far-eastern aesthetics. Whilst I set out to reference the tradition of Shan Shui scroll paintings with Yangtze, that work could be seen as following more of a European or American landscape lineage. By showing the Thames as sparse and monochromatic, with immeasurable distances disappearing into the fog, it was closer to home that I found a marriage between subject, medium and metaphor that intimately reflects my inner experience.

Nadav Kander, 2017

Related Project Work
The Edge of the Stream
View in Film
Dark Line – The Thames Estuary
View in Monographs
Dark Line – The Thames Estuary
View in Exhibitions
Dark Line – The Thames Estuary
View in Exhibitions

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