James Sparshatt

El Principe by James Sparshatt - Framed baryta silver gelatin photograph

2004

The drums that provide the driving beat underpinning Cuban music were brought from Africa. Each distinct rhythm corresponded to a different God in the pantheon of Yoruba deities, all...

A fleeting touch of the lips on a tango dance floor. James Sparshatt’s photographs of music and dance capture the emotion and intensity of people lost in the rhythm of the moment. T...

The sculpted bodies of two dancers during a rehearsal in Santiago de Cuba… James Sparshatt’s photographs of music and dance capture the emotion and intensity of people. The work is...

Fuerza y Poder – Strength and Power. The Raphael Trejo gym is an institution of Old Havana. An open air gym that has produced world beating champions from bare-footed initiates. I...

ATO>MIC #3, 2020 Unique Gelatin Silver Print/ Luminogram and Photogram technique, Printed on tea infused fibre based paper, Custom Framed: museum mount-board with antireflective UV protective art glass in dark brown lacquered hardwood frame, /hand made in UK/ 23 x 18 cm (image print) 40.5 x 36 cm (Framed) Unique Series: ATO>MIC Signed and dated in pencil on verso Provided with the Certificate of Authenticity “The ATO>MIC work started as an attempt to replicate the idea behind still life painting - where you are trying to reproduce the image of solid looking things, things that could be on a shelf. So, I wanted to try doing that with just using light instead of paints - however I soon started to see the similarities with Harold Edgerton’s famous atomic explosion photos and how the scale of my work could be switched between small items on a shelf to enormous atomic explosions. That is the reason behind the strange title ATO>MIC - where the “>” is a kind of link between larger and smaller scales, between the two influencing ideas.” – Mike G Jackson The images (from the ATO>MIC series) may be reminiscent of the first milliseconds of atomic bomb explosions captured by Harold Edgerton's Rapatronic camera in the early 1950s but also visualise the thought of Maholy-Nagy’s bold visions in the Bauhaus’s movement toward the idea of the Gesamtkunstwerk, or “total work of art.” The 3D concepts that were first expanded in the same art movement by El Lissitzky a hundred years ago, are also explored here by Jackson’s drowned thin line within the third of the image. In his vision, the line reflects a shelf with the object on top, by adding the weight to it, the gravity pushing them down. Or maybe the thin line is just the horizon, where the enormous atomic blast took place…? Beyond these flat forms of two dimensional ‘lumino-graphic’ works on paper, the purest form of photography (‘light drawing’) lays a visible path to three-dimensional imaginary world, realised in precise composition, rhythm and warm earthy tones of these works. It’s up to the viewer to decide what they prefer to see and take with them. As Wassily Kandinsky once said; “Imagination is what allows your mind to discover.” About the Artist: Michael G Jackson...

ICES Cornflower Blue, bold pop art street photography from Richard Heeps' series, On-Sea. Created as an ode to Richard's childhood visits to his grandparents living on the Sussex co...

Heidler & Heeps Ten Piece Blues Installation. Acclaimed contemporary photographers, Richard Heeps and Natasha Heidler have collaborated to make this beautifully mesmerising collectio...

An India sunrise over the foothills of the Himalayas. The lush landscape tickled by the sun, adorned by Tibetan Prayer Flags. This artwork is a l...