Samuel Hicks – Towers

Fellows Court 1, St. Mary’s Estate, Hackney, London, 2020 – Samuel Hicks

Photographer Samuel Hicks grew up in London, and his new mini-series ‘Towers’, celebrates some of the city’s Modernist social housing developments in South and East London. Looking for an easily accessible subject to get out and photograph after the 2nd Coronavirus lockdown was lifted in November, Samuel returned to a subject that he had documented as some of his first work as a professional photographer.

Featured in this series are the St. Mary’s Estate in Hackney, Falstaff House in Hoxton and the Dorset Estate in Bethnal Green designed by influential modernist architects Skinner, Bailey and Lubetkin. Built between the 1950s and 1970s, and loved and loathed in equal measure, these estates once covered large parts of South and East London, but many are now being knocked down and replaced. Photographed at dusk, the architecture, and in particular, the lighting of these buildings takes on a new aesthetic and becomes highly cinematic. 

Samuel Hicks has forged a successful career in commercial and editorial photography, travelling the world working for clients such as Nike, Land Rover and Coca Cola. His personal work has taken him on location to Sweden, Norway, the US and Ireland where he shot the New York State Circus with projects published in The Independent, Wallpaper and Huck Magazine. In the last few years, his personal projects have included a series of short films on youth culture.

TO SEE MORE OF SAMUEL'S WORK CLICK HERE

Morgan Silk – Nightwalks

Nathan's - Coney Island NY

British photographer Morgan Silk has captured his nocturnal wanderings around the United States in a series of beautifully rich and dreamy black and white images. Taken during a road trip across the US in 2014, starting in NY and ending in New Orleans via Tennessee, Mississippi and Alabama, ‘Nightwalks’ captures cities and its people in reflective and introspective mood, a certain hush fallen in the small, quiet hours.

Silk states about the project, “Similarly to much of my other work, the images are purely observational and were unplanned without any particular concept or idea of any particular subject, shot on the hoof with a pocket camera and no other equipment. No setting up, no waiting for the light. More akin to street photography in approach. I warm to the concept of no concept when out with a camera, it’s where my love for photography began and I find the best images I make come out of nowhere, unexpectedly and without preconceived ideas. You have to allow yourself to be receptive and let things flow freely, just being there in a totally new place, equipped and present at the right moment. The images instinctively come to you if you are open to seeing them. Thinking can get in the way sometimes so simply going out with a camera in this way is more about photographing by feel and less about thinking.”

Morgan Silk is a highly successful and award-winning advertising and fine art photographer. His highly acclaimed project Zoo won an Association of Photographers Gold Award and an Honourable Mention at the International Photo Awards (2009). His portrait of Jake Tassell from the series ‘After The Riots’ was selected as one of the 6 limited edition covers of 2009’s Creative Review Photography Annual. His ‘Saturn V Rockets’ series won ‘Award of Excellence in Communication’ at the Arts Photography Annual Awards 2016.

TO SEE MORE OF MORGAN'S WORK CLICK HERE

Hugh Holland – Silver. Skate. Seventies.

On the occasion of the release of his latest monograph, ‘Silver. Skate. Seventies’published by Chronicle Chroma Books, skate photographer Hugh Holland unveils some never-before-seen images from his archives. Beginning in 1975, Holland masterfully captured the burgeoning culture of skateboarding against a sometimes harsh, but always sunny Southern California landscape.

These iconic images were first inspired on a late afternoon when Holland drove up Laurel Canyon Boulevard and encountered skateboarders carving up the drainage ditches along the side of the canyon. From suburban backyard haunts to the asphalt streets that connected them, Los Angeles was the birthplace of the legendary Dogtown and Z-Boys skateboarders. With their requisite bleached-blond hair, tanned bodies, tube socks and Vans, these young outsiders evoke the sometimes reckless, but always exhilarating origins of skateboarding culture.

In ‘Silver. Skate. Seventies’,Holland presents a raw, spontaneous understanding to his well-known colour photographs of the 1970’s skating scene. Holland shot these negatives while experimenting with new ideas, and often, for his own enjoyment. These early black and white images were in many ways the genesis for his later color works—providing us with a rare glimpse behind the creative curtain. To see more of Holland’s work, visit www.cranekalmanbrighton.com/ photographers/hughholland

Giles Revell – Royal Ballet

Giles Revell creates imagery that is driven by analytical and forensic ideas that question the boundaries of science and art. There is a distilled graphic style to his work which has a recurring curiosity for observing familiar themes with an alternative viewpoint. He is a master of lighting but also inspired by the potential of using new technologies to reveal innovative ways of expressing ideas.

This series of abstract dance images was made in collaboration with The Royal Ballet, exploring both the sculptural and emotional movement of classical dance in a bold contemporary way. Choreographed Royal Ballet dancers were captured with precision at very high speed to emphasise the energy, gesture and expression through time lapse. The work is on permanent show at the Royal Opera House and has been the cornerstone imagery to celebrate the relaunch of The Royal Opera House and The Linbury Theatre after large scale renovations and redesign of the building by the architects Stanton Williams.

Giles has won numerous photographic awards and high-profile commissions for his work as well as his very recent celebrated collaboration with The Royal Opera House. His work has been published and exhibited around the world and is represented in the permanent collection of the Victoria & Albert Museum and The Natural History Museum in the UK.

Johanna Goodman – The Catalogue of Imaginary Beings

Based in New York, American illustrator and collagist Johanna Goodman studied at Boston University’s School of Fine Art and Parsons School of Design (NYC) where she graduated with a BA of Fine Arts in Illustration in 1992. She has been a freelance Illustrator ever since. Her work has garnered awards from The Society of Publication Design, American Illustration and Communication Arts.

In 2017 she was awarded the New York State Council for the Arts/New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship grant for her on-going body of work The Catalogue of Imaginary Beings. The images, developed from over twenty years of portraiture and collage work, explore a range of themes in popular culture, including the role of the individual in fashion, in history, in the artistic imagination and draws inspiration from magical realism, surrealism and symbolism.

Johanna’s work has been featured in a wide variety of publications from The Guardian and Marie Claire to Vice and Creative Review. Her work has also been included in several books about Illustration, Art and Collage including The American Illustration Annual Book, 3×3: The Best of International Illustration, Communication Arts Illustration Annual, and she was profiled in The Age of Collage: Contemporary Collage in Modern Art published by Gestalten. To view more of her work, click here

Christophe Jacrot

The gallery is very pleased to present the work new photographic artist Christophe Jacrot. Jacrot is a French photographer who found his subject by accident whilst on a shoot to take sun-lit photographs of Paris for a guidebook, but found himself caught in a torrential rainstorm. He decided to change focus, and the images he captured that day were exhibited and then published as Jacrot’s first monograph, Paris in the Rain.

This surprise deluge marked the start of Jacrot’s special relationship with bad weather, whose evocative and often romantic qualities escape us as we attempt to flee it. Since that pivotal moment, he has travelled the world searching out bad weather; he follows reports of monsoons in Tokyo, hurricanes in New York and snowstorms in France and Siberia, capturing the dramatic weather and emotions they create. The cinematic qualities of his work capture an unspoken narrative that flows through each image.

Since 2007, Jacrot has exhibited his work regularly in Paris and internationally. His series In the Mood for Rain was exhibited at the Kunstlicht Gallery in Shanghai in 2013, and in the same year his solo show entitled Black and White, containing works from New York in Black and Blizzard was exhibited at the Young Gallery in Brussels. His book, Météores, was published by Editions h’Artpon in 2015. This was followed in 2016 by Snjor, the images produced from his trips to Iceland, and then in 2017, New York in Black, Jacrot’s series of photographs taken during the blackout caused by Hurricane Sandy in 2012. To see more of Christoph’s work, and for sizes and prices, click here.

Karine Laval – Heterotopia

Karine Laval has continued her exploration of shape, colour and form with new works in her on-going series ‘Heterotopia’. In these new images, Laval’s evolving exploration of distorted realities and altered perceptions result in seductive manipulations of light and colour, created by combining analogue techniques and digital technologies.

Laval’s images often challenge the familiar perception we have of the world, and can be seen as a bridge between the world we live in and a more surreal and dreamlike dimension. Laval’s distinctive use and deliberate manipulation of colour, as well as the introduction of chance in some instances, contribute to further question the relationship between representation and reality, with some of these works moving towards abstraction and the dissolution of the image entirely.

Karine has just been nominated Laval for the 2019 Prix Pictet, the prestigious international award that combines photography with a concern for environmental sustainability. This year’s theme in Hope. This is the second time she has been nominated, the first being in 2016. Currently, she has a major solo show at SFO Museum in San Francisco, where she presents new and early work from Heterotopia. To see more of Karine’s work, click here.

Morgan Silk – Jack In The Green

Morgan Silk has been involved in creating photographic images since the mid-1980s after graduating from Blackpool and the Fylde College. He began his career as a creative re-toucher working alongside photographers for advertising clients, and then began to experiment with his own photography, predominantly colour landscapes, his skills as a re-toucher continuing to be employed to give an unusual and personal touch to the finished work.

His latest personal body of work is this series of portraits captured at the Jack in the Green Festival in Hastings.This revived May Day tradition with ancient pagan roots sees hundreds of colourful participants come together to welcome in the changing of the season while celebrating fertility and the flourishing of nature. The series is part of a long-term portrait project centred on British Traditions & Folklore.

Morgan’s work has appeared in many publications and won numerous awards. His highly acclaimed project Zoo won him an Association of Photographers Gold Award and an Honourable Mention at the International Photo Awards (2009). His portrait of Jake Tassell from the series ‘After The Riots’ was selected as one of the six chosen limited edition covers of 2009’s Creative Review Photography Annual, and one of his images, Eucalyptus, from the Tasmania series was featured in the 2012 AOP Awards. To see more of Morgan’s work, click here. To view this series in full, click here.

Joseph Ford – Knitted Camouflage

British photographer Joseph Ford has produced a series of eye-catching and humorous tromp l’oeil images under the title ‘Knitted Camouflage’. Working with knitwear designer Nina Dodd, each image has been meticulously crafted combining location, model and knitwear to camouflage people into their backgrounds to seamless effect.

The photography is quite time-consuming, but it’s all broken down into little chunks. Most of the locations are places Joseph comes across while wandering around cities, and the models are also people he’s spotted on the street and asked to pose. Dodd, a knitwear, enthusiast can take up to 40 hours to knit one of these camouflaged items of clothing.

The work has now been featured in numerous publications including The Guardian, The Independent, VICE, Colossal and both the BBC and ITV News. The work has also won several awards (Applied Arts Photography & Illustration Annual, Creative Review, AOP Awards) and was included in the Association of Photographer’s 50th Anniversary Exhibition. To see more of Joesph Ford’s work, click here

Samuel Hicks – Neon Stories & Las Luminarias

Young British photographer, Samuel Hicks, has two new projects that we are presenting here. The first, is an on-going project, Neon Stories. Each meticulously crafted image takes its inspiration from song lyrics that have significant meaning to the photographer. The images have been taken in different locations across the UK and US with lyrics from artists as diverse as Skepta and David Bowie.

Hicks’s other project, ‘Las Luminarias’ came from a recent trip to Spain earlier this year. Las Luminarias is a 400 year old festival held in San Bartolome de Pinares, about 100 KM west of Madrid. Its traditions combine the pre-Christian magical rituals of local peasants with Catholic beliefs, where they purify their horses for the year ahead by riding them through fires. Las Luminarias is held on the 16th January, the night before St. Anthony’s Day.

Samuel Hicks has forged a successful career in commercial and editorial photography, travelling around the world and working for clients such as O2, Land Rover, Lucozade, The Times, The Independent and Wallpaper Magazine. In the last few years his personal projects have incorporated working on location in Sweden, Norway, the US and Ireland where he shot the New York State Circus. To see more of his work, click here

New York – Giacomo Brunelli

In his latest body of work, Giacomo Brunelli turns his distinctive lens on the most iconic of cities, New York. Documented over the last 12 months, New York features his distinctive film-noir style to create a unique and evocative view of the city and its famous landmarks. Working entirely in analogue format, Brunelli shoots his photographs with a 1960s Miranda Sensomat 35mm camera given to him by his father, and meticulously handprints his photographs in limited editions.

The series belongs to a long and rich photographic tradition of celebrated photographers (William Klein, Paul Strand, Berenice Abbott) who brought a new visual intensity and originality to photographing the city. New York is the result of his constant walking, often for ten hours a day, chancing upon particular things that sparked Brunelli’s interest be that the shape of a hat, a piece of clothing or demeanour of a person. Adopting the position of voyeur or spy, he follows his prey until he alights on the right time to create the image. By pushing the lens to the closest point of focus, almost touching the subject, he suggests a very close intimacy with these strangers, whilst at the same time respecting their anonymity.

Giacomo Brunelli first two major projects, The Animals and Eternal London have received great critical acclaim and were published as books by Dewi Lewis Publishing. Brunelli has exhibited widely and received several awards including the Sony World Photography Award, the Gran Prix Lodz, Poland, and the Magenta Foundation’s ‘Flash Forward 2009’. His work is held in many private and public collections including the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, The New Art Gallery Walsall, UK Kiyosato Museum of Photographic Arts and Portland Art Museum, USA. To see more of Giacomo’s work, and for sizes and prices, Click here

Karine Laval – Heterotopia

Untitled #64, 2018, from the series Heterotopia

Karine Laval has continued her exploration of shape, colour and form with new works in her on-going series ‘Heterotopia’. In these new images, Laval’s evolving exploration of distorted realities and altered perceptions result in seductive manipulations of light and colour, created by combining analogue techniques and digital technologies.

Laval’s images often challenge the familiar perception we have of the world, and can be seen as a bridge between the world we live in and a more surreal and dreamlike dimension. Laval’s distinctive use and deliberate manipulation of colour, as well as the introduction of chance in some instances, contribute to further question the relationship between representation and reality, with some of these works moving towards abstraction and the dissolution of the image entirely.

Karine’s work has recently been exhibited at the Benrubi Gallery, New York, at the Robert Koch Gallery in San Francisco, Paris Photo in November 2017 and most recently with the gallery at Photo London at Somerset House. Her new work was selected as one of The Guardian Newspaper’s Picks of the Fair and was also highlighted by Gold Spot Magazine and in The British Journal of Photography’s Guide to Collecting produced in conjunction with Photo London. To see more of Karine’s work, click here

Ellie Davies – Fires

Fires 2, 2018 by Ellie Davies

British landscape photographer, Ellie Davies, has produced a beautiful new body of work, ‘Fires’. In this new series, Ellie continues her long preoccupation with the woodland, this time combining it with the elemental quality of fire with all its deeply symbolic narratives, bringing together the opposing themes of life and death, creation and destruction, love and loss and the human versus the natural world.

The small fires present in these images cast the forest in a warm light, holding back the dark, bringing a sense of safety and comfort not only transforming the forest but temporarily altering it. A man-made fire however must be built and lit, tended and fed. Its mere presence implies the existence of people, and the human narrative remains despite their absence. The viewer is left to weave their own experience into the woodland, invited to enter, to sit down, to be silent and still; to become a part of the wood and for a time to find a place within it.

Ellie has had a busy 2018 with solo exhibitions in Milan, Brussels and New Delhi as well as unveiling her new work at Photo London. This year her work was also selected for the publication American Photography 33, a curated collection of some of the best in contemporary photography and in The British Journal of Photography’s Guide to Collecting produced in conjunction with Photo London. To see more of Ellie’s work, click here

Hugh Holland – Silver Skate Seventies.

Off the Blocks, San Fernando Valley, CA, 1977

Legendary skateboard photographer Hugh Holland has just released a previously unseen treasure-trove of newly-discovered black & white images shot in and around Los Angeles during the same embryonic period – 1974-1978 – as the renowned colour works from his series ‘Locals Only’, published in 2010 by AMMO Books.

This never-before-exhibited archive of black & white images, which includes some of his earliest photographs documenting the rise of the California skateboard revolution in the 70s, adds a more raw, spontaneous understanding to Holland’s well-known later colour works. Holland began his photographic documentation of the skateboard revolution shooting in black and white taking these negatives while experimenting with new ideas and often for his own enjoyment.

Hugh Holland’s work was rst exhibited in the US in 2006, and has since exhibited internationally in London, Paris and New York, with upcoming exhibitions in Sydney and the Pera Museum is Istanbul. His work was rst exhibited by Crane Kalman in 2007. In 2011, the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) in Los Angeles included his work in the rst major U.S. museum survey of gra ti and street art in a group exhibition entitled ‘Art in the Streets’. To see more of Hugh Holland’s work, click here

Tim Flach – Endangered

Fireflies

Following on from the success of his earlier series ‘Equus’, ‘Dogs: Gods’ and ‘More Than Human’, photographer Tim Flach’s releases a major new body of work, ‘Endangered’. This thought-provoking project has just been released as a hardback book by publishers Blackwell & Ruth with a number of images being issued as limited edition prints.

Many years in the making, the new work takes us on a journey around some of the world’s most embattled species and ecosystems. In a remarkable series of animal portraits, the plight of many of the planet’s most beautiful and extraordinary creatures is laid bare. This is a stunning and important body of work which continues Flach’s deepening insight into man’s relationship and treatment of the animal world.

Flach has become renown for his highly stylised animal portraits, far removed from traditional wildlife photography’s images of animals observed in their natural habitat. Flach brings his subjects into such close focus that the viewer begins to read the gestures and body language as we would a human being. His photographs evoke pathos, humour and an unmistakably intimate human empathy. Flach’s work has been extensively published and exhibited internationally. To see more of the Endangered series, click here.