Simon Roberts (b.1974) is based in Brighton, UK. He has exhibited widely with solo shows at the National Media Museum in Bradford (UK), the Museo d’Arte Contemporanea di Roma (Italy), and the Multimedia Art Museum in Moscow (Russia) amongst others; and his work has been included in exhibitions at Aperture (New York); Corcoran Gallery of Art (Washington,
DC); The Photographers’ Gallery (London, UK); Museum of Contemporary Art (Shanghai, China); and Museum of Contemporary Photography (Chicago). His work is in major collections including the George Eastman Museum, the Art Collection Deutsche Börse, and the V&A. In 2010 he was commissioned as the official British Election Artist by the House of Commons Works of Art Committee to produce a record of the General Election on behalf of the UK Parliamentary Art Collection; and in 2013 was made an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society. His books include Motherland (Chris Boot, 2007), We English (Chris Boot, 2009), Pierdom (Dewi Lewis Publishing, 2013), and Merrie Albion – Landscape Studies of a Small Island (Dewi Lewis Publishing, 2017).
Homeland explores Roberts’ critical reflection on the relationship between contemporary national identity and place, as well as his ongoing investigation of what draws people together within a particular landscape.
Between 2004 and 2005 Simon Roberts traveled to more than 200 locations across Russia to produce the book Motherland (2007), an exploration of the relationship between landscape and Russian identity. His photographic studies explored ideas of Russia’s ‘modest beauty’ and presented a diverse view of the vast country, encapsulating the optimism and national pride derived from the Russian sense of place. Motherland remains one of the most extensive, comprehensive photographic accounts of Russia by a Western photographer.
Upon returning to Britan, Roberts began to examine the British relationship to the idea of homeland. He came to define it as a sense of longing sustained by “a range of archetypal images held in the mind”. The resulting photographs, which were produced over a decade (2007-2017), adopt a historical, rather than fleeting, gaze. Exploring social practices and customs linked to the British landscape, as well as some of the economic and political theater that has helped define recent history, his large-scale photographs reflect on the nature of shared
histories and communal experiences.
Simon Roberts Homeland will be exhibiting both Motherland and Homeland alongside one another at Flowers Gallery in New York, November 15, 2018 – January 12, 2018
Opening Reception Thursday, November 15, 6-8PM
Flowers Gallery
529 West 20th Street
New York NY 10011
To view more of Simons work, check out his website.