Within the ICM movement, Doug Chinnery stands as the definitive Abstract Expressionist, shifting the focus from the external landscape to the internal landscape of the soul. Much like Mark Rothko, he treats color not as a property of things, but as a vibrating, emotional entity. By stripping away the literal through fluid, handheld gestures, he creates color fields that exist in a state of lyrical dissolution. In his work, the subject is no longer the forest or the sea, but the resonance of light and the atmospheric depth of the “unseen.” He is the alchemist who proves that photography can achieve the same transcendental presence as a master’s canvas, turning the act of shooting into a meditative performance of pure, non-figurative art.
Dreams of Tuscany
In the series “Dreams of Tuscany”, Doug Chinnery fully embraces his identity as the “Rothko of the Camera.” He strips the Italian landscape of its tourist clichés, reducing hills and cypress trees to vibrating fields of color. Through a masterful, fluid “legato” motion, he creates a visual atmosphere where earth and sky merge into a chromatic haze of siennas, ochres, and olive greens. The series is a study in atmospheric dissolution, where the solidity of the Tuscan land is transmuted into a dreamlike, translucent meditation, proving that for Chinnery, the landscape is merely a canvas for the expression of pure light and silence.
Dark Ocean
Doug Chinnery is the photographic heir to Mark Rothko, possessing the textural soul of a classical fresco painter. His work represents the ultimate shift toward pure abstraction, where form, color, and light merge into a coarse, organic surface. Unlike the “single-shot” purists, Chinnery embraces layered editing as a core creative pillar; he uses multiple exposures and textural overlays—often from rusted metals or aged plaster—to build a sense of physical weight. In series like “Dark Ocean”, he applies these layers with a painterly touch, using blending modes to let the light breathe through the “cracks” of the digital canvas. Frequently employing a square format ((1:1)), he strips the image of its geographic identity to focus on the vibration of color fields. In Chinnery’s hands, ICM is a process of visual alchemy, turning the solid world into a translucent, emotional, and tactile presence—occupying the sacred space where the landscape ends and the raw, physical resonance of light begins.
Images of Elsewhere
Images of Elsewhere represents Chinnery’s most expressionist and colour-rich body of work, using dynamic ICM gestures—arcs, vibrations, and layered sweeps—to create shimmering atmospheres that dissolve recognisable landscapes into fields of emotional colour. Greens, reds, golds, and deep blues blend into softly fractured surfaces that recall abstract painting more than observational photography. Conceptually, the series explores displacement and dream-territories, conjuring a sense of an imagined place beyond geography—an “elsewhere” constructed from movement, sensation, and intuitive response.
The Five Masters (quick guide)
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