The Confession Photograph

Travelling since the age of 12. Educated in London and Sydney. Paul Anthony Sleeman is a Sydney based photographic artist with an international following, particularly in the USA. His architectural images are included in the collections of the late Joern Utzon, Joel Klein Chancellor of New York Education and President Bill Clinton. The American Club has nine prints from his Gotham series on permanent display. In December 2010 Mercedes-Benz of Sydney purchased 26 limited edition fine-art prints from the Emerald City Collection for display in their new Sydney facility. Paul commenced his career as a photo-journalist in the 60's with rock magazines, capturing visiting groups including the Rolling Stones. By the 80's, he was based in SE Asia, primarily Hong Kong and Jakarta, focusing on the socio-political climate of China and Indonesia, before returning to Sydney to work as a scriptwriter.In the 2008 Sony World Photography Awards, industry equivalent of the Academy Awards, Paul was a final ten finalist as selected from over 44,000 professional submissions. Paul specialises in , travel, architecture, environmental portraiture and fine art photography. Paul is a member of the American Society of Media Photographers (ASMP) and divides his time between Sydney and New York. Exhibition Review by Robert Mcfarlane, Photography Critic: Sleeman clearly follows themes established by American masters such as Edward Weston, who sometimes expressed the female form in landscape terms. Sleeman varies this by shooting in colour and camouflaging the female form beneath overlapping patterns of shadows. The photographer crops each composition precisely, presumably in the camera, compelling the viewer to see each picture only on terms of form. At his best, in photographs such as Bodyline-Un, Sleeman suggests the undulating, shadowed landscapes of the perilous Sahara desert nightscapes evoked by the French aviator and children's writer Antoine de Saint-Exupery in his 1939 memoir Wind, Sand And Stars. Sleeman's abrupt cropping applies visual shorthand to other compositions such as La Biche Six, while intensely graphic deflect any deeper experience. The female nude survives as a timeless subject for artistic expression despite endless exploitation. Even allowing for remarkable champions of male nudes such as Robert Maplethorpe, the female nude prevails as the dominant theme, in terms of pure form and as a universal symbol of renewal.