Michael Ridley’s work is a fusion of two styles – documentary and art photography. Born in the UK, his formative years in Asia and interest in Buddhism influence his approach to recording the hidden face of a European capital. His photographs merge the boundaries of painting, photography and philosophy, exploring and reflecting contemporary culture and ideas of identity and sexuality. Ridley’s photography is unchanged by computer or darkroom manipulation. It is a reaction against the conversion of the living world into black & greys, which he believes has become the uniform of art and classic documentary reportage photography. By introducing unfamiliar ways of using light, form, focus and colour he transforms what he sees into images that seem questioning, ambiguous and somewhat disquieting. In this exhibition, colour expresses reality, capturing changing emotional and metaphorical images of a floating world. It is his approach to and nature of juxtapositions within the image that sets his work apart. Ridley’s photographs seem to be less about a particular subject than where the subject lies in space and how the light falls to illuminate it and its surroundings. In the late 80’s Michael Ridley became captivated with Paris. Since then he has visited the city whenever he could to satisfy his obsession with photographing with affection and humour, its spirit and essence, especially the left bank. He sees behind the obvious, to the hidden detail, with a penetrating attention to the invisible part of an image within. Transvision is the first public show of his Paris photography in France. His images penetrate the familiar to discover a private art of accident and intent behind the familiar, floating somewhere between reality and fiction, often reflected through transient objects with a wonderful sense of abstraction and colour. They are entirely holistic maintaining the hand of the artist throughout. Michael Ridley believes that meaning and empathy can be captured and communicated by the camera. His images keep the values of classic humanist documentary photography, looking, perceiving and interpreting. The meaning of any individual image can be perceived in a number of ways and is intrinsically linked to the viewers’ personal deconstruction of the photograph.
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