About
I am drawn to reach out into the lives of people who are landless and displaced, be that through war, climate change, politics, persecution or poverty. I am troubled by the way we try to address these issues through politics, which by definition is self assured and born out of the logic of statehood, nation[ality] and therefore exclusion.
Through my photography I hope to get a little closer to the human experience and beyond the forces that typically shape our opinions. I pursue my work with a deep sense of conviction, striving to tell the stories of those I encounter with a commitment to preserving and amplifying their dignity.
Having excelled in art as a teenager, I began my career as a sculptor. During this time I felt the need to respond in some way to the horrors of the Balkans War of the early 1990’s and travelled to Bosnia and Croatia as a muralist working in orphanages where I hoped to shine a light through my paintings on the lives I encountered. Later I found myself drawn to photography as a witness and as a form of questioning. I began my photographic journing exploring life in Brazil’s favelas. This was followed by work over two years, documenting the journey of refugees through Europe as an influx of refugees fled conflict in the Middle East and Afghanistan.
I have been greatly inspired by both my grandfathers photographic work and cannot help but feel I have a circle to complete, an answer to the question of why my Grandfathers picked up a camera.. Stanley, my Fathers father began as a street photographer before street photographers even existed, back in the 1930’s. He was drawn to the homeless and less able. George my Mothers father photographed widely in Africa, largely during his service in the RAF, photographing tribes and villages he went out of his way to visit and engage with. In different ways they were curious men who cared about the world around them.
In addition to projects in Europe, I continues to work with people displaced from Russian-occupied territories (Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Transnistria) as well as on a migration story within my home country.