My name is Tomos Ifans.

It is 6:30 in the morning. It is March. The air temperature is hovering around zero. I am swimming, without a wetsuit, off the coast of Brighton. I am lost in a sea of colour and form. It is utterly mesmeric and I am transfixed. I am not moving, just observing, and my body starts slowly shutting down. I’m not aware of this, as what I am seeing is extraordinary and oddly calming. I am saved from my reverie by my swimming buddy, the carpenter. And so begins this story.

I have been trying to capture what I saw on that day for around 4 years, trying to do justice to nature’s patterns.  At times I find that what I have captured is reminiscent of some of the Masters – at one moment a Pollock, the next, an Escher.  Monet drifts in, then out, only to be replaced by Dali, Degas and then by Munch – and all the while nature works away tirelessly, although never in a rush, to conjure up her own unique, one of a kind, out of this world creations.  Like clouds, or snowflakes, filled with colour and wonder – this is what I set out to try and capture all that time ago, a life time ago, in many ways – these one off patterns, patterns that would never be repeated exactly the same, ever again.

My images work in two ways.  From afar, you see them for what they are – reflections upon water.  They tap into the blue health ideal of “soft fascination” – they calm, they lower the pulse.  When you get close to them though, they become something entirely different; the minutiae, the detail, the frequencies, the sheer genius of nature explodes out of the image. They work best, big.  YOU HAVE TO SEE THEM BIG.

My latest series – “the unorganised, the immeasurable, the eternal” – can be viewed here.

My aim with this series was to capture the moment when, “nature herself shivers with ecstasy”.

As I’ve said, my work is best viewed at scale.  One can get a flavour of the imagery here, but it only truly works, up close and personal.  As ever, the gods and the devils are in the detail.

If you are interested in any of my pieces, please get in contact.