Living in hell and other stories

"Living in Hell and Other Stories, takes its inspiration from the headlines from my local newspaper, The Hackney Gazette. In the same way that Thomas Hardy used stories from his local paper The Dorchester Evening Chronicle and wove these into his novels I have worked with the headlines and the National Gallery collection to create a contemporary narrative in my photographic work. This work allowed me to explore the work of artists such as Sebastiano del Piombo, Peter Paul Rubens, Nicolas Poussin, Paul Gauguin, Michelangelo Caravaggio and Ludovico Carracci. The series examined how artists of their time expressed universal themes through their personal viewpoints. In the same way I have investigated the conflicts between religion and secularism, family and gender relationships and the effects of wealth, power and patronage. The series also works to lift the every day into the mythical and forces the viewer to re-evaluate contemporary life and its media representation. At the same time it encourages the viewer to take another look at classical works of art, whilst engaging with the real life narratives and universal themes."

Living in Hell and Other Stories has gone on to be the first photographic exhibition shown at the National Gallery, London. The accompanying catalogue has a Director's Foreword by Charles Saumerez Smith and essays by the art-historical novelist Tracy Chevalier (author of Girl with a Pearl Earring, 2000) and art/historian/curator Colin Wiggins (author of Ron Meurk, 2003). This body of work has now gone on to be shown in museums across the world.

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