ABOUT
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I compose images that elevate the performances of daily life through the construction of a momentary scene. A single gesture a “pause”, a point or a mystified gaze assembles melancholic relations to the processes of work and leisure. Alternative realities are proposed through the layout of contextually laden props, floating factory light boxes, over-spilling laundry bags or the primitive reassurance of a blanket.
Strongly influenced by the tableau-vivant photography of Jeff Wall, Thomas Demand and the sense of detachment offered by the deadpan aesthetic of Ed Burtynsky, Andreas Gursky and Lewis Baltz this work is situated within a middle ground, a staged moment within an unsuspecting terrain. Informed by the assertion of landscape as primarily a cultural construct and secondarily as nature, the focus of these large format photographs remains unbiased in its chosen vantage point-a broadened perspective of an event. The landscape acts as an underpin to the inconceivable scale of the man-made and natural world whilst the objects and characters remain props of a front region whereby momentary narrative is scripted and staged but left imbued with a sense of ambiguity. Questioning the conventional view of the sublime, the diminutive presence of the human subject and the mundane tasks undertaken raise questions about the nature of participation and alienation in our own lives and others.
I aim to propose an optimism that is preserved within the absurd, immensely vast and often forbidding situations that remain congruent to the human condition. In a nod to sociologist Erving Goffman’s analysis of the ‘on stage’, ‘off stage’ dichotomies of everyday life, this work alludes to the legitimacy of ‘performance’ and strangeness of the ‘real’. Consolidation of this position is conceded by a personal endeavor to seek out authentic industrial sites in full operation, facilitating the encapsulation of psychological and allegorically poignant moments within a ‘true’ and existing aesthetic of the corporeal world. As functioning places of work these locations often remain shielded from public view. Sub-stations, quarries and power stations often exist down narrow lanes and engulfing woods, rendering the quest for them as idiosyncratic as the actions of the staged characters within them. Recent work has taken on a larger format to embellish the internal relations between the human subject within the image and the intrinsic links to the viewer of the exhibit and their wider cultural positioning.
About Me
I am an artist living in London. I graduated from Chelsea College of Art and Design with a First class BA (Hons) Degree in Fine Art and have recently completed my Masters in Visual Communication at the Royal College of Art. I also work as a Freelance Photographer/Filmmaker. Please contact me if you would like to talk about a commission.
Previous Clients include:
The Designers Republic, Skin Flicks, Freee Collective, Sri Lanka Design Festival 2010, Esthetica. Lucy In Disguise, TateShots, Punchdrunk Theatre Company, The Guardian.
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