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Looking Back Whilst Looking Forward

I've been asked to contribute some of my Horizon work to a group exhibition opening this week at PS Mirabel. The images were made between 2010 and 2012 and having to look back and select some images for the show has been an interesting experience. I've been reflecting on my ideas and working methods from that time and considering how some aspects have changed, whilst some themes remain constant in my current work. 

This is what I wrote at the time:

For me standing looking out to sea has the same potential as going to an airport or train station, there is the possibility of going somewhere. It is a threshold to the exotic, the start of a journey. I use photography to explore the relationship we have with our surroundings, interested in transitional spaces, thresholds between places. It is a sensual shock to see little but sky and saltwater, separated by a graphic line, the horizon. It is almost too much to comprehend and causes a physical and mental reaction. I didn’t realise for a while but these photographs also stem from my awareness of the passing of time and how we all consider at some point or another what lies on our own personal and collective horizons. These images are both landscape and portrait pictures. There is in fact a double landscape – the natural one, out of focus and distant, but also the landscape of the back of the subject. What is not shown is as important as what is, the two dimensional photograph means the viewer is left to fill in the gaps, you can't turn it around to understand, to see the eyes, the face, the soul.

You can see the exhibition at PS Mirabel Gallery, 14-20 Mirabel Street, Manchester, M3 1PJ from Saturday 27th feb until 13th April 2016, with a Private view on Thursday evening 25th February 2016 (6-9). 

This exhibition explores photography as a narrative, transitional activity exploring a sense of place through landscape or states of change through objects and alternative modes of presentation. The exhibition includes work by the following photographers, designers and artists using photography.

Ian Beesley
Ben Graville
Craig Atkinson
Sarah Eyre
Agathe Jacquillat
Tomi Vollrausches
Marc Provins 
Anna White
Stephen King
Dana Ariel
Mario Popham
Roxana Allison & Pablo Allison
Sandra Ratkovic 
Evan Wood
Kieran Boswell
Radoslav Daskalov
Jenny Karling
Caroline Barker
Jack Doyle
Richard Ward
Michele Friswell
Mark Adams

Curated by Mark Adams
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Location: 20 Mirabel St, Manchester, Manchester M3 1DX, UK

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