We caught up with artist, photographer and sculptor Paul Bryan to discuss his work and in particular his current series ISLANDS available to purchase in Stores & Supplies...

My working class upbringing didn’t encourage me to study, let alone art. My dad wanted me to work instead. It wasn’t until I was 41 that I eventually went to art school. I completed my BA in Fine Art at NUA in 2018 followed by an MFA at Nottingham Trent University just recently.

I moved to London in 1997 and all I wanted to be was a photographer. My three favourite films from that time are Mike Leigh’s Secrets & Lies, Lisa Cholondenko’s High Art and John Waters ‘Pecker’. I only worked out recently that they’re all about a photographer or photography. Aside from djing, which I’ve done since I was 10 years old, photography was what I wanted to do. So I taught myself.

It’s hard not to be impressed by the sight of London. I fell in love with its architecture, its energy, and the masses of people instantly. Aside from taking pictures at friends parties, I started to take my camera out into the streets at night. I was so crap back then, but I soon found a style of street photography that I got pleasure from.

Most of the photographs are from a series called Islands and were taken between 2004 and 2011. Typically one person within a landscape or scene and I suppose influenced by Cinema and the French photographer Bresson. I’d always walk in London too. My friends hated it and still do. You get to know the streets and these photographs almost find you, as long as you have your camera that is. I used to mix between digital and film and get them developed at snappy snaps.

There are no specific stories behind these pieces as I don’t know the people in them. I could only say what I was doing at that time and for me that’s not so interesting. They’re snapshots of a person at a particular space and place in time that I found along the way. One or several images in a roll of 36 others.

That said I like all of these images for different reasons. ‘Woman at Buckingham Palace gates’ I can stare at for ages. Her face is something I can get lost in. That’s says a lot about the work I like. I like work that makes me wonder. The high rise flats in Nottingham were locally referred to as ‘Fairy Towers’ coz all us queers lived in most of them in the 80s/90s. And, if you look closely the Island’ is not a person in this picture. Maybe you’ll have to pop in to see what I mean. The stranger in Nottingham image seems quite mysterious and ominous to me which I love. It has a different energy. And the New York image i feel is quite timeless. It looks very woody Allen!

My photographic interests have changed dramatically. I stopped street photography when I left London. I’d fallen out of love with it. I still love photography especially portraiture but since the advent of socials and camera phones my relationship to photography has changed. I no longer ache to capture scenes, I even dislike adding to the maelstrom of images that consume us on a daily basis. The images that interest me now are more abstracted, less representational. I’m now more focused on photographic processes, other types of photography like electron microscopy which allows us to see things beyond our capabilities.

Since my studies I’ve become more interested in sculpture and installation and so my photography has become diluted and not the centre of attention. I tend to work with a lot of different mediums at the same time, sound, sculpture, photography and performance which allows me to converse in a more complex way. Photography can be quite limiting on its own.

A huge thanks to Paul for giving us an insight to his creative practise, we can’t see what the future holds for you…

Find Paul’s limited edition framed prints in store, prices between £150-250

ISLANDS by Paul Bryan