MARK VESSEY

UK-based photographer Mark Vessey blurs the lines between photographer and contemporary artist. Heavily influenced by Pop American culture, with Warhol and Haring particular heroes, Vessey uses his lens much as a painter uses his brushes, using light, colour and focus to produce his stunning and uniquely popular images.

His photographs of iconic pop culture heritage have now become icons themselves, highly prized in international collections and exhibited in such respected institutions as the Royal Academy. His group and solo exhibitions at galleries and international art fairs have been to huge acclaim and success and his work has been discussed in publications as diverse as Attitude magazine to The Times. He has further produced cover images for several books and been commissioned to take striking portraits of various personalities.

His Attitude photograph has become a defining image of recent pop culture history, as read along the spines of the eponymous magazine. His much-loved homage to the famed New York nightclub Studio 54 is portrait-like not only in its portrayal of the building’s history through its closed ‘face’, but with an image as timelessly cool as the nightspot itself.

Vessey often prefers to produce bodies of work as opposed to singular images, allowing him to explore and collate varying aspects of a theme. For example, When I’m Out features his take on the bars, clubs and streets of gay culture throughout the world, and his upcoming project, Collections, will highlight the fact that the literary, visual, and musical ephemera of all our lives reflects not only our personal histories but the cultural zeitgeists that influence our time.

Vessey’s natural wit and ability to tap into and distil the very pulse of our popular culture makes him one of the most exciting and collectable photographers of our time. As Simon Fanshawe says of Vessey’s work: Out of the blur will come you.