We are so detached from nature, and we are so detached from the idea of our own mortality - my work explores the area where these two subjects collide.

The series 'tender' is an act of compassion.
By embracing the animal, I try to embrace the inevitability of death itself.

I find all of the animals in my photographs dead on the side of the road. I cycle around and gather them up to be photographed and then buried. It's important to find them while cycling, it slows me down and gives me time to think.

I use a large 10×8? view camera and powerful lights that I haul outside into woodlands at night time, all of my photographs are printed analogue by hand on an optical enlarger, never going through any digital processing. Using the large cumbersome camera and the slow printing process is important to me, as is the quality I gain from using the large format camera, as even when I print my images at life-size, you can see every individual hair on the animal - as if you were there yourself.

untitled

Another young artist who has both an original twist and a sense of humor was Ayuko Sugiura. 

On show were two of her works which are underpinned by an interest in iconography and myth constructed by contemporary society. She merges these constructs and develops them into 'hybrid' sculptural forms, or immersive environments. Often the works take on a multi-sensorial experience that evokes very particular emotions from the viewers.

Pink Elephant was great........but Untitled gave us all the opportunity to come up with the 'right' title for the piece.

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