Stephen Gill (London, UK)
Born Bristol 1971. Lives in Hackney, London.
At an early age, Stephen was introduced to photography by his father. Combining his interests in birds, animals and music, he began to take photographs.
In 1985, while still at school, Stephen worked with a Bristol-based photographer, copying and restoring old photographs and helping to take family portraits. Two years later, he began working full-time in a one-hour photo lab in the city.
In 1992 he enrolled in the Photography foundation course at Filton College in Bristol and, a year later, began to work at Magnum Photos in London, firstly as an intern and then full-time.
In 1997 he become freelance and since has continued to make a variety of personal photographic series.
Stephen's photographs are now held in various private and public collections and have also been exhibited at many international galleries and museums including London's National Portrait Gallery, The Victoria and Albert Museum, Agnes B, Victoria Miro Gallery, Galerie Zur Stockeregg, Gun Gallery, The Photographers' Gallery, Palais des Beaux Arts, Leighton House Museum, Haus Der Kunst and has had solo shows in festivals including - Recontres d'Arles, The Toronto photography festival and PHotoEspaña.
Selected Exhibitions
Solo
- 2009
- Hackney Flowers - G/P Gallery, Tokyo
- 2008
- A Series of Disappointments - Gungallery, Stockholm
- 2007
- Anonymous Origami and Buried - Leighton House Museum
- 2006
- Toronto Photography Festival, Canada
- 2005
- Invisible and Lost - PHotoEspaña, Real Jardín Botánico
The Architectural Association, London - 2004
- Field Studies - The State Centre of Architecture, Moscow
Recontres d'Arles Photography festival - 2003
- Hackney Wick - The Photographers' Gallery, London
Group
- 2009
- After Color - Bose Pacia, New York, July 8 - August 21
Hackney, That Rose-Red Empire - Danielle Arnaud Gallery - 2008
- Borderspaces - Schwartz Gallery, Hackney Wick
What You See Is What You Get, CNA - Luxembourg
Anonymous Origami and Disappointments - St. Ann's Warehouse, New York
Haus Der Kunst, Munich - Parrworld
European Eyes on Japan - Kagoshima Museum of Art - 2007
- Terrains D'Entente, Paysages Contemporains - Rencontres d'Arles
'Says the Junk in the Yard' - Flowers East
Photography and Cinema - Tri Postal, Lille
Something That I’ll Never Really See - The V&A, London
State of Work - Fotohof Gallery, Salzburg, Austria - 2006
- Click, Double Click - Palais des Beaux Arts, Brussels
Click, Double Click - Haus Der Kunst, Munich
Courtauld Institute of Art - Somerset House, London - 2005
- Noorderlicht Photo Festival 2005 - The Netherlands
Site Specific
- 2007
- Hackney Flowers, Street Exhibition, East London
- 2004
- Billboards on Billboards Street exhibition, London
- 2003
- Cashpoint machines, London
- 2001
- An Edible exhibition, photographs on cakes with food dyes, East London
Selected Reviews
- 2009
- Shigeo Goto, The hope of photography
Suwako Fukai - Quotation Magazine - 2008
- Most Influential in Book publishing, PDN
Angharad Lewis, Lost forever, Grafik
Toyoko Ito, Interview, Studio Voice, Japan
Japan Esquire, Hackney Flowers - 2007
- Christof Schaden, Invariably Eden - foam Magaine - read
Geoff Dyer - Unseen UK review / Aperture Magazine
Times Photography Book of the year - read
Anthony Lasala - Buried, Photo Eye Magazine
Jeong Eun Kim - Fragments of a poem, Iann Magazine - 2006
- The Queen - on receiving a copy of Hackney Wick - read
Gerry Badger -, Hackney Wick, Ag Magazine
MH - Hackney Wick, Foto8 Magazine - read
Iain Sinclair - Lost Treasure, The Guardian Weekend - read - 2005
- Sophie Malexis, Hommes Invisibles, Le Monde 2
Michel Guerrin, Le photographe en anthropolgue de la ville, Le Monde
Photonews, Invisible
Tim Clark - PhotoEspaña, NextLevel Magazine: Issue #8
Now you see them, The Guardian Weekend - read - 2004
- A keen observer of life, Creative Review
The Kindness of Strangers, The Guardian Weekend - read
Message au dos, Liberation newspaper
Jane Fletcher - A book of field studies, Source Magazine - 2003
- Sarah Kent, Hackney Wick - Time Out
Elaine Paterson - Straight out of the ordinary, Metro Newspaper
Paul Wombell - Eye Catching, Design Week
Martin Murray, The Wick, Source Magazine
Jon Ronson, Confessions of a vino virgin, The Guardian Weekend - read - 2001
- Thomas Sutcliffe, Framed - The Independent Magazine
"Stephen Gill has learnt this: to haunt the places that haunt him. His photo-accumulations demonstrate a tender vision factored out of experience; alert, watchful, not overeager, wary of that mendacious conceit,'closure'. There is always flow, momentum, the sense of a man passing through a place that delights him. A sense of stepping down, immediate engagement, politic exchange. Then he remounts the bicycle and away. Loving retrievals, like a letter to a friend, never possession… What I like about Stephen Gill is that he has learnt to give us only as much as we need, the bones of the bones of the bones…
Iain Sinclair
"Stephen Gill is emerging as a major force in British photography. His best work is a hybrid between documentary and conceptual work. It is the repeated exploration of one idea, executed with the precision that makes these series so fascinating and illuminating. Gill brings a very British, understated irony into portrait and landscape photography."
Martin Parr
