Artist statement
'Mehta goes to the places where unexpected, and often uncomfortable feelings are likely to emerge. If this leads one to expect a quiet, unobtrusive body of work, it ill prepares us for the boldly pictorial quality and strong visual impact of his images. This refining down of attention and the altercations of focus are the key strategies that allow Mehta to defamiliarize and decontextualize his subjects, enabling us to see familiar things as if for the first time.' (Stuart Hall
'Different' © Phaidon Press Ltd. 2001)
I have been working with photography for over 20 years. My work has covered many varying projects several of which look at issues around cultural identity.
During this time I have developed from working within a traditional documentary black and white idiom towards a more personal method of expressing ideas, specifically through the use of colour to produce images that are intimate and sensitive.
More recently my work has explored ideas surrounding the methodology of the constructed landscape. This is a project that I have been collaborating on with Greer Crawley (a landscape architect and academic at Buckinghamshire Chilterns University College, UK).
The work is a representation and metaphor for surgical techniques within the manipulation of the landscape.
I have published two solo books, Distant Relations (pub Autograph 1996) with essays by Mark Sealy and Oladele Bamboye, and ‘Coastline’ (pub Browns 2003) with essays by David Chandler and Andrew Martin.
My most recent exhibition has been a group show at the Smokehouse Gallery, London looking at photography in its most elemental state of darkness and light.
'Roy Mehta depicts the natural world in uniquely photographic terms, playing with exaggerated perspective to create a strange, distorted, almost fevered rendition of the English botanical landscape.' (Sophy Rickett, Hotshoe, July 2010)
Qualifications and training
- 1990 BA (Hons) Photography, University for the Creative Arts, Farnham, UK
Solo exhibitions
- 2004 'Coastline', Romfeia Gallery, Plovdiv, Bulgaria (Plovdiv international photography festival)
- 2003 'Coastline', Focal Point Gallery, Southend UK
- 2003 'Coastline', The Tom Blau Gallery, London
- 1999 'Coastline' photography exhibition, The Cape Town Month of Photography, Cape Town University, Cape Town, South Africa
- 1997 'Distant Relations', Willesden Green gallery, London
- 1997 'Distant Relations', Keynes gallery, University of Kent, Canterbury
- 1996 'Distant Relations', Impressions Gallery, York, UK
- 1996 'Distant Relations', Cambridge Darkroom gallery, Cambridge, UK
- 1995 Harlesden Church project, Derby Photography Festival, Derby, UK
- 1993 Harlesden Church project, Photofusion Photography Gallery, London
- 1993 Harlesden Church project, Willesden Green Gallery, London
Group exhibitions
- 2010 'Between Two Truths' photography exhibition, Smokehouse Gallery, London, UK
- 2000 'Just Another Day', Ffotogallery, Cardiff. UK
- 1998 Moving Stories, Harris Museum and Art Gallery, Preston, UK
- 1998 British Photography Today, installation, Rencontres d'Arles, France
- 1997 'Shine' Group exhibition of contemporary photography, National Media Museum, Bradford, UK
- 1996 John Kobal portrait exhibition, National Portrait gallery, London
- 1991 Harlesden Church project, Watershed Media Centre, Bristol, UK
Public commissions
- 2005 'Transition' images of Bedfordshire, Bedford gallery, Bedfordshire
- 1994 Airside/Landside images of an airport, Luton Museum and Art gallery, Bedfordshire
Educational experience - tertiary
- 2005 visiting lecturer, City college Brighton & Hove, Brighton
- 2003 visiting lecturer, University for the Creative Arts, Farnham
Publications
- 2003 'Coastline' (pub. Browns ISBN is 0-9533730-6-1)
- 2001 Different (pub. Phaidon ISBN-10: 0714840149)
- 1996 Distant Relations (pub. Autograph ISBN 1-899282-20-3)
Personal website
