Photography as an art form

Featured Art: 'Lennon & McCartney - Silkscreen on canvas'.  A signed, limited edition silkscreen on canvas by contemporary figurative artist Simon Claridge.

Pioneering photojournalist Eve Arnold is best known for her intimate portraits of Marilyn Monroe, as well as her work around social justice, politics and womanhood. With curiosity as her driving force, it was her mission to capture reality in her photographs.

Never using studios or professional lighting, Arnold travelled the world photographing her subjects in situ, building a relationship of trust and companionship that allowed her to take authentic, truthful photographs.

Photographing everyone from celebrities and politicians to manual labourers and potato farmers, Arnold mastered both black and white and colour photography. She did not like to limit herself to just one, so alternated between the two throughout her career depending on her subject.

The artist’s black-and-white images are hand-printed silver gelatin prints, produced from the original negative. In a darkroom, they are developed, fixed, washed for at least an hour, and finally air dried. As the work is all done by hand, each print is unique. Arnold’s colour images are C-Type prints, scanned and then printed digitally as the original negatives are incredibly fragile.

“If a photographer cares about the people before the lens and is compassionate, much is given. It is the photographer, not the camera, that is the instrument.” - Eve Arnold

British contemporary artist Simon Claridge has garnered international acclaim for his fine art interpretations of iconic figures from the worlds of fashion, film and music, counting Hollywood A-listers like Claudia Schiffer and Rod Stewart among his collectors.

Claridge has transformed photographs from hallowed archives, including those of legendary English photographer Terry O’Neill CBE, Playboy and 20th Century Fox, into silkscreens, imbued with his now signature diamond dust finish.

This unique technique ensures that no two people will view Claridge’s art in the same way as light is reflected and refracted off the shiny particles of the ‘diamond dust’– an incredibly rare material.

His silkscreen renderings have been executed thoughtfully, to retain the essence of the original exposures and showcase his own style, as well as that of the original photographer.