James Sparshatt

Las Memorías by James Sparshatt. Silver gelatin photograph with Wood Frame

2004

The old country girl from the Escambray mountains. I was hiking in the mountains, close to Trinidad, when I met the family. They invited me in and we chatted about our different live...

The Viñales valley in western Cuba is a place of stunning beauty where perhaps the finest tobacco leaves in the world are grown. The tobacco farmers live hard but proud lives. The S...

Te veo… I see you. Matanzas 2005. The Spirit of the Revolution series documents the generation of Cubans that saw the dramatic changes of 1959 as young adults. They have a strength ...

Dagoberto began playing his guitar in the Casa de la Trova in Holguin, Cuba, in 1944. Sixty years later in 2004 I had the pleasure to sit with him in the same bar on a day to celebra...

A tobacco farmer from the Viñales valley in Cuba. In 1959 residents of Cuba were faced with a stark choice: stay on their island home and live as a “revolutionary” or leave. Some believed wholeheartedly in the new beginning, some were willing to be carried along and some abandoned everything they had and chose exile. The Buena Vista social club found fame as much for their incredible spirit as for their music, but for me it is the everyman that you meet on the street, cigar clamped between teeth, a glint in the eye, that embodies the true spirit of those who have lived through 50 years of struggle. James Sparshatt’s photographs of the “Revolutionary” generation of Cubans capture their grit and indominatable spirit. The black and white portrait photograph...

On a musical and pleasure seeking pilgrimage… during Las Romerias de Mayo festival in Holguín. The Spirit of the Revolution series documents the generation of Cubans that saw the dramatic changes of 1959 as young adults. They have a strength of character and underlying humour that transcends the struggle that has defined their lives. James Sparshatt went to Cuba in 1999 and was so taken with the island and its people that he returned 15 times in the following 7 years. His images are largely of the music and dance and innate rhythm of the island but he also found himself drawn to an older generation that had been old enough to understand the revolution in 1959, that lived through 40 years of tumultuous and often difficult times and who now watch with some bemusement the return of the outside world in wave upon wave of tourists. James Sparshatt’s photographs of the “Revolutionary” generation of Cubans capture their grit and indominatable spirit. The black and white portrait photograph...

"The play of water and light has fascinated me for years. From childhood I have found sunlight underwater mesmerising - be it a Cornish rock pool or The Red Sea, the movement and diffraction of light excites me. Add to that the thrill of schools of fish - specifically Akule, which are found in seas off Hawaii. I spent some time wanting to make a series of prints that captured the play of light on these fast moving fish - creating flowing abstract forms and textures." - Mike G Jackson The goal isn't to replicate the real world - it is to show where the real world and the process meet - sometimes pushing towards the real world, sometimes pushing towards the process - but never completely at either extreme. - Michael G Jackson Michael Jackson (b.1966) is an experimental photographer based in North Dorset, England. He studied art at West Dean College in Sussex, then apprenticed under landscape painter Christopher W Baker and later discovered his passion for photography. He moved away from working with traditional camera techniques in 2015 and is currently progressing the Luminogram process into new directions in which he has become regarded as a leading practitioner. His work has been exhibited internationally and is part of various private and museum collections including The National Art Gallery in Washington, USA. Selected Press: “Mike Jackson...

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...

ATO>MIC #8, 2020 Unique Gelatin Silver Print/ Luminogram and Photogram technique, Printed on tea infused fibre based paper, Framed: Custom made frame with antireflective UV protective art glass 23 x 18 cm approx. image size 38 x 35.5 cm (Framed) Unique Series: ATO>MIC Signed 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 Jackson The images 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...

UNDER AND ABOVE, NEW YORK CITY, 2021 Unique Silver Gelatin Print, Selenium toned; This is a mixed process print using luminogram, photogram and other darkroom techniques – all cameraless, two unique prints mounted on Aluminium Dibond. Currently, this piece is mounted only but will be framed further with hardwood black frame and finish with antireflective UV protective art glass - please see further images for referrals regarding the framing. 2 x Prints as One work of Art: 80 x 50 cm Framed 82 x 52 cm approx./ 32 x 20.5 inches approx. Unique Work Series: New York City Signed by the Artist on verso and provided with signed and stamped Certificate of Authenticity © Michael G Jackson...

Cape Cross, ‘Hoof’, 2001 by John Reardon Edition of 2/7 Silver Gelatin Print, Mounted on Aluminium, Custom framed, UV protective Museum AR Glass This pie...

Singspiel, Stallion Portrait 2001 by John Reardon 76 x 51 cm Edition of 5 only Silver Gelatin Print, Mounted on Aluminium, Custom framed, UV protective Mu...