Photography NOW

26th April – 7th May 2023

Preview Night: 26th April, 6:00 – 8:30pm

Open:
10am – 6pm Monday to Saturday
12 – 6pm Sunday

Artists

Luca Gnizio

@lucagnizio

Luca Gnizio, born in 1981 in Lodi, created a new field of professional expertise in 2009: the ECOSOCIAL artist.

His pioneering approach is now acknowledged at international level. Thanks to his artistic and technical background as an industrial designer and commitment to protecting the environment, his works using recycled industrial waste materials have given life to an innovative artistic trend that encompasses both ecological and social aims.

Luca Gnizio’s work is not confined to an in-depth study of the individual company concerned. By underlining the importance of the wider community, he has successfully grouped and involved local and multinational companies together with community associations to bring about ecological circular economy projects and hence his ECOSOCIALLY neologism.

Gnizio’s projects include his Levi Jeans project, which involved 300 shops and associations for young people with disabilities, prisoners and the unemployed; the Cosmave project for recycling marble dust, once again involving community associations and over 80 companies and the joint BMW and SGL Carbon Group project for the recycling of carbon fibre offcuts, from which Gnizio has obtained two of his patents for ecological and technological innovation.

Gnizio’s new materials and a number of his patented products are now exhibited in renowned museums: FORSOUL – The first ever crystal ball incorporating fabric (recycled carbon fibre), now on permanent display in the prestigious Murano Glass Museum. FORBLACKLIGHT– From the recycling of carbon, Gnizio obtained the first water-repellent fabric to become transparent, earning the artist the “Eccellenze della Lombardia 2019” award and a place in the prestigious Adi Design Index 2019.

Gnizio has also been on exhibit since May 2018 at the “Vittoriale degli Italiani” Museum with DANNUNZIECO, a monumental work that was defiant in its use of scraps of dirty paper obtained during the restoration of the historic walls of the Vittoriale complex.

For three years from January 2021, Gnizio’s work has been on exhibit overseas through the diplomatic-consular network and the Italian Cultural Institutes with the itinerant exhibition, 3CODESIGN, called by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, curated by Silvana Annicchiarico.

Simran Kaur

@simran_k_01

Simran Kaur is a surrealist fashion photographer and creative director currently based in London. She was born and raised in Italy, but her heritage is Punjabi.

Simran’s main objective is to create mental health awareness with her experimental photography. At the same time, she also creates dreamlike abstract visuals to make the viewer explore another reality.

“My Environment” is an ongoing fashion documentary photography project showcasing a subject’s comfort in an environment built around their needs and understanding of themselves.

This is often showcased by what a person wears at home and what they have around the comfort zone they built in their house. While the project aims to showcase the fashion and interests a person has, it also has a secondary meaning of showcasing the most vulnerable part of a person. Our house, most of the time, is the most private place we created where we don’t let everyone in but only specific people we trust, hence why the images have been printed small as they are intimate moments between a subject and their innerself.

Alex Silver

@alexsilverlll

Alex Silver began shooting photography & producing music at the age of 13. He studied Fine Art & Photography at New York University, Tisch School of the Arts. Now a Professional Fine Art Photographer, Alex’s work has been exhibited Internationally. He’s won multiple awards from competitions such as the London Photography Awards, Muse Photography Awards, & New York Photography Awards. Alex has also exhibited & been featured in, Venice International Art Fair 16th Edition 2022, Canvas International Art Fair 2023 – “BODYSPACES”, M.A.D.S. Art Gallery “DE-CRYPTICart” 2023 International Contemporary Art exhibition, Blank Wall Gallery in Athens, Greece, Photography Now exhibition at The Brick Lane Gallery in London, Praxis Gallery Photo Center in Minneapolis, & PhotoPlace Gallery juried exhibition “Monochrome” in Middlebury, Vermont. His series ‘Divine Feminine’ was featured in both the September 2022 issue “Monochromatic” by Dodho Magazine & also in New England Home CT “Wanderlust” issue.

“Alex Silver creates Evocative, seductive, & intimate, black & white portraits, and texture & form-based abstracts. He produces images that draw curiosity, wonder, and connection with the viewer. In his portraits, Alex invites the viewer to share in his personal connections. He describes his experience when shooting people, “I find myself in a state of flow, allowing my curiosity to drive my creativity.” In his abstract work, he has the ability to redefine the ordinary or familiar, deconstruct, and re-create, while inviting the imagination to stretch.”

 

İlkin Eskipehlivan

@ilkineskipehlivan

“Photographic surfaces, like mirrors, serve to show the viewers themselves. An image of the infinite combinations of the world has fallen before the viewer and what they see and find in this image is related to themselves. The viewers should look at these mirroring surfaces without forgetting that they are looking at one of their diverse states of being…. Let them ask “what is this image trying to tell me? Usually they say something.

The artist, who has been producing lens-based production for 16 years, has photographed more than 30 countries within the framework of specific subjects.

His intention is to bring together photographic of moments that give him a “temporary peace” while watching, with other viewers in his first exhibition in London.

 

Basia Bogacka ARPS

@bbfotoimpresje

Basia Bogacka is a Polish citizen based in the North-East of England. A retired academic from the University of London, she is now fully engaged in fine art photography. She presents her work at photographic societies and in journals, as well as on her website and social media. Her project related to climate change led to presentation of her image of fossil air trapped in glacial ice at the Exhibition of the Science Photographer of the Year 2021 in the Manchester Science and Industry Museum, and to an article published by the Artists for Climate Change Forum. Another project, on the importance of meadows for biodiversity, led to a publication in the ICM Photography Magazine, special environmental issue, in November 2021.

While her climate awareness projects continue, she also investigates colour and form and tries to create abstract images which would metaphorically speak about human values and relationships. Basia explores colour space by creating geometries of interconnected shapes. In her other projects she tries to convey a sense of place, a feeling of the moment and effects of light on what we see by making impressionistic images of autumnal colours of woodlands, as well as the sea and land. She often uses Intentional Camera Movement and Multiple Exposure in camera to achieve her photographic goals.

Ida Chloë Lou Olsen

@hvorerduida

Ida Chloë Lou Olsen (b. June 1990 in Stjørdal) is an analogue photographer & artist based in Oslo, Norway. She graduated with a first-class BA from The University of Westminster in London in 2019.

Before Photography Now, she has exhibited work at Free Range in 2018, Umwelt in 2019, and had her first solo show ‘Cloudland’ at Galleri kyo in 2020. Her work has thereafter been published in Nowhere Diary, Black River, SOLA Journal, Closure Magazine, and Fisheye Magazine, with more.

Her work studies intimate passages of life, and further poetic reflections of themes such as time and space, memory, identity, and home. Lately, she has looked more closely at ‘the land’; how our identities are shaped by the land, and how we shape the land around us.

Encircling her self-portrait is a collection of eight unrelated portraits, all part of daily life situations. The portraits represent her love for the people around her, a hope of understanding the human experience, and her continued close interaction with the landscapes in which she spends her time.

Amy Bloomfield

@insanityisoptional

Home, the long way round documents a familiar route of winding roads and alleyways transformed as dusk falls. This usually inviting journey reconstructs itself with every flickering streetlight, shifting silhouette and glaring headlight. Despite my curiosity for this altered environment, I find my pace unintentionally quickened.

Utilizing my love for analogue photography, I further distort this new world through grain and shadow. As I process the film, holding it carefully between my fingers, I reflect on the paradox of uneasy peacefulness that fills me as I opt for the long way round.

Conn McCarrick

@connmccarrick

Conn McCarrick is an emerging Irish artist and recent graduate of the National College of Art and Design in Dublin. He is a member of MART Studios and has exhibited his work in Ireland, the UK and the USA. Conn’s photography focuses on the experience of queer young people in Ireland and draws from his background in campaigning for social and political rights.

Away with the Fairies is an ongoing body of work about queer cruising spots in Ireland. The series documents LGBTQ+ men in several different cruising spots across Ireland — at a time when many local authorities are attempting to sanitise these controversial areas.

Away with the Fairies brings light to personal and private moments that have historically been kept in the shadows of society — by making use of photography’s innate ability to reveal the unseen. The work is inspired by Irish mythology, fairytales and responds to slurs used against the LGBTQ+ community.

In this series, Conn McCarrick challenges the viewer to consider the duality of people and places. The work is an exploration of how liminal spaces are experienced and how they can be transformed by new, queer narratives.

Ruby Gale: Observer of Life
@ruby_gale_photography

The theme of this series from my perspective is loneliness and the fragility in older people. Loneliness is all around us. We may feel it in different ways however, I chose to focus more on older people as they add more character and raw emotion to my images. Looking through a viewfinder is a whole new world. It’s like being invited into someone’s life. The outcome is not just a person in the frame, it represents a unique story that I carefully observe to take the shot. These are moments captured in time that portray a story I hope will connect the viewer to the subject and make them create their own opinion of what resonates with each photo. When I take my photos, I prefer the subject to be completely unaware of me, as this creates a real and candid environment for me to shoot.

Kate Dunlop
@kate.dunlop.photography 

When I was 11 my family immigrated to the UK. It was a culture shock at that age. This is when I was first introduced to Irish Travellers. Over the years, I have witnessed the unsettled dynamic between modern society and these traditional, family focused and proud people. Ongoing prejudice against travellers is a challenging aspect of their everyday life, particularly for school children, further enforcing a reliance on family and a protective community. In pursuing this photographic project, my aim was to shine a spotlight on Travellers as individuals rather than a label.

Liz Sherriff
@liz_sherriff

Liz is a retired medic on a journey of rediscovery. Originally from Surrey she spent her medical career in South London and now spends much of her time on the Wiltshire/Dorset border, walking her dogs and with her camera in hand.

Liz finds herself drawn to the experimental and abstract with the shadow of science never far behind. In March she a finalist in the RPS Woman Science Photographer of the Year 2023.

Glacial Inflorescence is part of a body of work “Fire and Ice” exploring extreme weather events associated with climate change. The work was conceived during the Covid Pandemic and inspired by the 26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26) meeting which took place in November 2021 in Glasgow.

Fire and Ice

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favour fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To know that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

Robert Frost 1920

Richard Pengelley

@theshyphotographer_

I grew up in the seaside town of Sitges in Spain then the Midlands in the UK and I’m now based in London, England.

Whether in black or white or colour, my photographic work tends to capture nature and my connection with it, to try and represent how I feel about it. I find photography very therapeutic and often immerse myself in woodland and landscape which is deeply curative. I’m often drawn to tranquility, abstraction, or intimate scenes. More recently, I’ve found the same connection with seascapes and abstracts, maybe stemming from my formative years living by the sea or wandering in nature.

I have had work featured in Frames magazine, product work for Twelve Beauty, The Generator Project & Untainted Magazine, and have sold limited edition prints to a few clients.

The Brick Lane Gallery
216 Brick Lane
London
E1 6SA

Phone: +44 (0) 207 729 9721

Instagram: @bricklanegallery