Opening Saturday 28 April (2-5pm)

Exhibition: 28 April - 16 May

For as long as I can remember I have been interested in viewing things from an unusual perspective. As a child I would spend hours in the garden scrutinizing the inside of flowers or trying to make sense of the labyrinth world that lay within my front lawn, aware even then that what is on the surface of things is not necessarily what lies beneath.

As an adult I find that this desire to discover the undiscovered and explore the unusual has not left me and is very much a part of my innate personality and view of the world. This side of myself that needs to be expressed has taken hold in the form of photographs. And although ultimately I would hope my pictures stand alone as objects of aesthetic merit, they are just as much about a personal journey that focuses on the search for different truths and underlying meaning in seemingly ordinary places.

Through my pictures I hope to depict that by looking closely at our world and the abundance of information that can be found in seemingly small and irrelevant detail, we can transform what is often drab and commonplace. We can find meaning in all things and compel ourselves away from our immediate surrounds into a space where ordinary things can seem unique, beautiful and at times unsettling or bizarre.

When searching for pictures, I am almost always drawn to places that are mostly overlooked and would superficially be seen to hold no interest. These areas resonate with that innate part of myself that must see beyond the obvious. In these moments, everything has an essence. It may be contemplative, still or quiet. Sometimes it’s lonely and sometimes its achingly beautiful and tender but once I recognize it everything falls into place. It is then that my pictures take form as if they were laid out especially for me.

Although my pictures are a vehicle to access a part of myself that lies deep within my subconscious the aesthetic value is of utmost importance to me. I want my images to be unencumbered by unnecessary detail so that symbols can be seen clearly for what they are. Any details that do appear, whether they be people or random remains of our urban lives, are there to convey a feeling or message. By stripping down and simplifying my images, I hope the viewer is better able to see exactly what I see.

All in all I like to compose my images with as little fuss as possible so that what is important can be absorbed without interference and that the essence of what I have seen whether it be calm and serene or menacing and hard, may be evident to the viewer as at was to me at the moment I released my shutter.