Art at The Ship
Richard Dunkley - 27 March 2008 -30 June 2008
The Ship Hotel Chichester is delighted to announce an exhibition of photographs by Richard Dunkley.
Richard Dunkley spent much of his youth in the Chichester area at the family home in Aldwick. Now living in London he regularly returns to Aldwick to visit his sister. "I developed an early love for the deserted beaches and marshlands and the bird sanctuary around Chichester Harbour and still walk for miles there every time I visit. I did probably up to ten shoots of dancers in the 90s at favourite 'secret' spots in the area and it is interesting that many of the locations no longer exist due to the ever changing beach and marsh terrain. Huge sandbanks have disappeared and even my favourite gnarled tree was destroyed by a gale. This is definitely one of the most beautiful places I know."
After graduating from the London Film School, Richard Dunkley went on to establish his career in fashion photography. Throughout his professional life, Richard has worked for some of the largest magazines and advertising companies across Europe and the US, including Vogue, Marie-Claire and The Sunday Times Colour Supplement. His many successes in business have been recognized by the number of awards that he has received, such as the New York One Club Gold.
In his dance-related work Richard has received commissions from numerous financial institutions, including ING Bank, Euroclear, Lloyds Bank and more recently a pan-European campaign for De Beers. The privately sponsored New York avant-garde magazine Dance Ink published many of Richard’s images and was hugely supportive of his work. Included in this exhibition is his work with New York City Ballet, San Francisco Ballet, Ballet Rambert, Laban and Michael Clark. Over the past two years Richard has been invited to lecture on his work at universities and colleges throughout the UK.
This exhibition is concerned with Richard’s dance work from the past two decades, which revolves primarily around images of movement, narrative and light.
Some 16 years ago, a timely meeting with the contemporary dancer Kate Coyne provided the inspiration that sparked Richard’s enduring passion for exploring the form and dynamics of modern dance through the lens. In addition to making some of his favourite pictures with her, Richard feels privileged to have worked with Kate from the earliest shoots to recent times; and credits her for having taught him how to avoid many of the visual clichés often found in this genre. Thus by placing his models beyond the boundaries imposed by their normal environment (the stage) Richard has strived to create new and different ways for him and his subjects to work, whilst at the same time disrupting conventional expectations of how dancing might be seen by a much wider audience. By inviting us to view the dancers in a natural or manmade landscape, or even in an entirely neutral space, we are free to interpret or invent our own version of what is happening in the images.
Dance is at the heart of Richard’s work, and feeds into the basic human need to be happy and free when moving around; as one young dancer observed, ‘I think we are very blessed children, and we are children; even older people who dance have a young spirit.’ *
*Ashley Wheater principal dancer with The San Francisco Ballet, 1998, (‘At the Ballet, Onstage, Backstage’, by Sandra Lee & Thomas Hunt, Universe Publishing)
All pictures are for sale. Please contact reception at The Ship Hotel.
