Stephen Gill, Coming up for Air

Coming up for Air is the result of a long-term photographic body of work made in Japan between 2008 & 2009 over the course of three visits to the country. Though the images were made in Japan they are not essentially about Japan and are more of a reaction to my life in London at the time.

Unlike the other more descriptive photographic series I had made, this time the information in the images has been starved or almost in some cases completely denied, like muffled sounds when swimming beneath water. A fictional aquatic world as if viewed from the other side of an aquarium looking outwards. The series is more of a reaction to the modern world rather than an attempted description of it.

"Coming up for Air" ist das Resultat mehrer Reisen nach Japan. Die Bilder, welche zwischen 2008 und 2009 entstanden, verkörpern eine fiktive, fast aquatische, unreelle Welt, in der sich Gill stets wieder zu finden schien. Die sonst für den Künstler typische informationsgeladene Bildsprache wurde für diese Serie ausgeklammert.