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Over
the last seven years Roy Mehta has built an extraordinary portrait
of our coast and people, photographing throughout the kingdom from
Brighton to Tintagel, Southend to the Outer Hebrides.
‘Coastline’ can
be seen as a development of themes previously explored in Mehta’s
work. In ‘Distant Relations’ Mehta was subtly exploring
exchanges between individuals and cultures. By focusing on surfaces
touching each other via small events and gestures, the work created
figurative references to cultural identity. The ‘Coastline’ he
has again chosen to look at meeting points, this time using location
to also signify exchanges. Coastal towns are used to represent
intersections, places of chance encounter, points of arrival and
departure where both people and histories meet.
Roy
Mehta has exhibited extensively at an international level, including
at The National Portrait Gallery, London, The National Museum of
Film and Photography, Bradford and Rencontres d’Arles, France.
His work has been featured in the recent book ‘Different – A
Historical Context’ 2001 and in the solo publication ‘Distant
Relations’ 1996.
A
68 page hardback book of the same name, published by Browns, with
essays by photography writer and curator David Chandler and novelist
Andrew Martin and containing 40 full colour plates, will be available
from the gallery during the exhibition.
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