For over thirty years, Simon Cuthbert has cultivated a vast visual archive, chronicling the human need and desire to create structures which provide shelter, comfort, utility and efficiency. His photographs operate across a spectrum of established photographic genre. Part portrait, indexical document, social commentary, and elegy; he toys with viewers habituated knowledge systems of the built environment.
A consistent Cuthbert motif is compositional isolation; enhancing the forensic detail of the camera lens, while elevating architectural studies into the genre of portraiture. Within this slippery pictorial terrain, it is easy to anthropomorphise. Cuthbert’s structures stand resolute, staggering against all odds, where simple survival is in itself heroic.
Cuthbert works exclusively with large format colour film photography techniques. With an eye and skill honed by the rigours of museum collections documentation - his day job - Cuthbert provides an important challenge to lofty notions of heritage. In the supposed “non-places” of the suburbs, the roadside layover, or the desperate barren paddocks, we encounter ambitious invention and wilful individuation. Beneath Cuthbert’s exacting approach lies a palpable sympathy for his subject matter.
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A consistent Cuthbert motif is compositional isolation; enhancing the forensic detail of the camera lens, while elevating architectural studies into the genre of portraiture. Within this slippery pictorial terrain, it is easy to anthropomorphise. Cuthbert’s structures stand resolute, staggering against all odds, where simple survival is in itself heroic.
Cuthbert works exclusively with large format colour film photography techniques. With an eye and skill honed by the rigours of museum collections documentation - his day job - Cuthbert provides an important challenge to lofty notions of heritage. In the supposed “non-places” of the suburbs, the roadside layover, or the desperate barren paddocks, we encounter ambitious invention and wilful individuation. Beneath Cuthbert’s exacting approach lies a palpable sympathy for his subject matter.
Contact