Words by Felicity Shaw.
We caught up with creative duo, photographers Nick Thornton Jones and Warren du Preez who are the first to exhibit their work at the Vinyl Factory, a spanking new gallery space in Chelsea. ‘When the night falls’ is presented in collaboration with ‘Daydreaming with…’, curated by Producer, Music Maker and DJ James Lavelle of UNKLE fame and will unite big names in music, film, art, fashion and design.
Q: You have been in a creative partnership together now for the last 10 years. How do you work to keep the relationship and your ideas fresh?
A: By not being complacent and having a mutual respect for each other’s purveyance of an art-form driven by passion, as well as the balance we bring as a collective vision and thought process, life and the evolvement to having each other’s backs.
Q: Can you tell me a little bit about the idea behind ‘When the Night Falls’? What does this title mean to you?
A: It means to transgress the familiar and take a journey to one’s own subconscious desires.
Q: The press text to accompany the exhibition talks about ‘dreams in reality’. Can you tell me about the most vivid or memorable dream you have ever had?
A: Falling into a never ending void of the most fantastic colour and light, filled with a feeling of warmth and euphoric joy with supernatural abilities and any reality or fantasy you could imagine ….
Q: You have both worked with a variety of people, including Björk, UNKLE, Alexander McQueen and Issey Miyake. Who would you love to collaborate with, whom you haven’t already?
A: People who challenge now, inspire and have a unique voice in their chosen pursuit in life. We gravitate towards interesting characters within the web of popular culture.
Q: Your images work with manipulating light. How can this change an image? What moods or stories can you create by using this technique?
A: Visual experimentation creates surprise and curiosity, the way we engineer light allows us to motivate a moment of deconstruction, and the straight image is thus metamorphosed.
Q: You work primarily with the woman’s form. What draws you to this in particular?
A: We look at women not as subjects, but as projections within our dreams. Our subconscious and conscious appreciation and fascination of the female form, stems right back to the beginning of our collaboration, which was a shared compulsion to bring into existence our own personal phantasms.
Q: How do you work to challenge notions of beauty?
A: We are conditioned to believe that Beauty is something that should reflect the Ideal – we challenge the alternative against this convention of reality.
Q: What is next for you both?
A film collaborating with Russell Maliphant on his new dance creation to come out next
‘When the night falls’ is presented by The Vinyl Factory and Daydreaming with…James Lavelle
Daydreaming with…. Nick Thornton Jones and Warren du Preez is on until Sunday 9thOctober at The Vinyl Factory Chelsea,91 Walton St, London SW3.
Opening Times: Tues-Sat 11am-7pm, Sunday 12-6pm
To visit the Vinyl Factory website [click here]
