Abstract

The work on exhibition attempts to interrogate modern urban environments in the context of socio-political and cultural change. The work is united by a common theme of accessibility, which enables viewing on a range of levels. The artist’s statement in this catalogue (ISBN 0-9549958-1-3) provides further explanation of issues and questions addressed through the work. The work featured a series of photographic images of varying formats, the project as a whole being in its third and final year, hence the eclectic mixture of format and photo-process. The work had a strong affinity with a particular city and with it’s people, drawing its influence from painting, printmaking and typography, whist investigating the impact of visual art and design in commerce and industry. Its documentation of the interrelationships of space, human form architecture and the lens, embraced experiment not by imitating, but by using the photo-process and the early development of the medium, to clarify its importance within an ever-changing world. The re-acquaintance of the artist with early traditions of the medium, together with experimental nuances of the digital age, was directly inspired from the Photo-Secessionists and European counterparts primarily for the large architectural and urban landscape plate work. The more intimate portrait work looked to later Photographers Gary Winogrand, Robert Frank and Lee Friedlander in order to bring to life street characters as evidence of street life at the beginning of the new millennium. The entire 24 image series was printed with a similar set of tonal values as a means of avoiding any visual contradictions between the viewer and the subject matter.