Tobias James Slater-Hunt

As a photographer I am primarily concerned with the externalization of internal worlds. The current project is The Ascension. A huge sprawling endeavour that uses Dante's Inferno[2] as an allegory for my own personal experience of long term chronic illness. By using Dante's Inferno, as one text, and the tableau photograph as a second text, I am seeking to create an allegorical arena in which my images can explore the notions of illustration, authorship and interpretation.

These fictions, these strange physiologies, are based on the paintings of Cranach and Grunewald, drawing a line though Da Vinci's grotesques[3] to the present day practice of photographic portraiture, to question what is real. By utilizing modern technologies these photographs now have the same expressive possibilities previously only afforded to paintings. By using these technologies in a subversion of the norm, i.e to disfigure, mutate and expose flaws rather than to edit them out, I seek to reference the old mechanisms of picture making; considerations of composition, use of light and finally just what the human figure should or could look like. Obviously manipulated, the hand of the Artist is exposed, a confession perhaps or a portrait?

University of Brighton
Masters Degree, Photography, Distinction
2008 – 2010
Plymouth University
Graphic Design, Photography, Double First Class Hons
1989 – 1992

Selected Exhibitions: Group Shows

12/12/11 to 17/12/11: Mnemosyne 2011. The Menier Gallery. 51 Southwark St. London. SE1 1RU. www.mnemosyne2011.com
10/11/11 to 12/02/12: Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize 2011. The National Portrait Gallery. London
14/07/11 to 25/08/11: 154th International Print Exhibition. Royal Photographic Society. Allen & Overy, One Bishops Square, London
27/10/2010 to 12/10/2010: Historia at the Host Gallery. London
11/09/2010 to 17/09/2010: Historia at the Brighton University Gallery
17/09/2009 to 30/09/2009: MAP2010: Brighton Media Center. Brighton
12/11/98 to 22/11/98: Under Pressure. Brighton Media Centre. Brighton
21/07/1998 to 04/10/1998: Forensic: Bags of Evidence. Hove Museum
22/06/1994 to 20/07/1994: South Bank Photo Show; Make Believe. Royal Festival Hall. London

Publications:

Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize 2011. Exhibition Catalogue 2011
154th International Print Exhibition Royal Photographic Society. Exhibition Catalogue