Spencer Murphy

Canary in a Coalmine and Jockey Portraits

January 8 - March 3, 2016

In our first international exhibition, Workspace Gallery partners with Kansas City's Snapshot Gallery to bring together two bodies of work by English photographer Spencer Murphy.

In Canary in a Coalmine, he explores mining communities around Nottingham, UK. In the past half century mining in the United Kingdom has been in a constant state of flux from closures to strikes to industrial accidents but still the community endures. Centred around the Thoresby Colliery, these images of miners, antique mining equipment and mine sites are a celebration of coal mining as it exists now, a monument to a time past and a reflection of a community that, despite the uncertainty, has remained strong and passionate about a trade that has been passed-on through the generations.

While shooting a series of jump jockeys' portraits for Channel Four's The Original Extreme Sport campaign, he was able to photograph Katie Walsh. He says: 'I was keen to include Katie, I wanted to show both her femininity and the toughness of spirit she requires to compete against the best riders in one of the most demanding disciplines in horse racing. I chose to shoot the series on large format film, to give the images a depth and timelessness that I think would have been hard to achieve on a digital camera'. While the series includes a number of portraits, the one of Walsh included in this exhibition and above, won the National Portrait Gallery’s prestigious Taylor Wessing Portrait Prize in 2013.

ABOUT THE ARTIST: Raised in relative isolation in the Kentish countryside, miles from the nearest shop or school, Spencer often found himself with only his imagination for company and the surrounding woodland as his playground. It was a combination of this imagination and an early discovery of his mother’s back issues of Life and National Geographic that sparked an early enthusiasm for photography. He studied at the Kent Institute of Art and Design before getting a BA in photography at Falmouth College of Arts. Spencer now lives and works in London, dividing his time between creating his own artwork, and taking on photographic commissions. He was named as one of the Hyeres Festival’s emerging photographers of 2008. In 2013 Spencer won First Place in the National Portrait Gallery’s prestigious Taylor Wessing Portrait Prize, having been included in the exhibition 6 times between 2006 and 2012. His work is now held in the National Portrait Gallery's permanent collection. He has contributed to many magazines, including The Guardian Weekend, The Telegraph Magazine, Time, Monocle and Wallpaper. His portraits have also appeared in such publications as Baku Magazine, Dazed & Confused, GQ and Rolling Stone. His work has been exhibited throughout Europe and North America, including a 2015 exhibition at Snapshot Gallery in Kansas City, Missouri. https://spencermurphy.co.uk/project/portfolio/