hon Riddy
b. 1959, Northampton, England
One of the most distinctive voices in British contemporary photography, John Riddy has consistently worked in series, using methods and formats that allow for silent and complex descriptions. His work echoes that of the medium’s earliest practitioners, exploiting still images to render the everyday as both factual and transcendent. The particularities of place and the urban environment have been constant subjects, whilst the starting point for many of his series has been the relationship between photography and the history of art and architecture. Typically eclectic examples are the autobiography of John Ruskin, the woodblock prints of Hokusai and the photographs of Gustave le Gray. Choices about format, materials and technique have been intrinsic to each series and the physical and formal qualities of the final print of paramount importance.