![]() In 1985 The Photographer’s Gallery invited him to present his one man show exhibition titled LIVE! 85 Over the years Iain McKell has been known for collaborating with artists such as Boy George, Madonna and Kate Moss and with equally prestigious brands and advertising companies. The result of this project was the publication of a book and various exhibitions in New York, London, Paris and Milan. He has also spent over ten years befriending and photographing a group of New Age Gypsies. McKell has been photographing subcultures since the 1980s, and has since documented various other counter cultures, including Psychedelic Trance in Thailand, Fetish, Druids/Pagans, winter night carnivals in Somerset, London Dandies and American Rockabilly. His first project dates back to 1975 in Weymouth documenting his own life and the environment he grew up in including family, friends, girl friends, people who worked or lived in Weymouth and holiday makers. ![]() Iain McKell is a London based photographer who having studied graphic design at Exeter College of Art and Design, at 22 decided to leave his job and become a full-time photographer. To consider what kind of a World they wish to leave behind for the generations of the future. To rework and reuse broken or outdated things and to waste less and to care more. We tell tales in broken tongue, urge people of the present to re-examine, to recycle and rethink their consumption. We have returned to these times to speak the story of our homelands. From this our band of women has forged an eco-conscious cult with a mission. Our costumes are scrapped and scavenged from the streets and skips and surrounding woodlands of Tottenham and beyond. Our Religion is therefore a tangled dichotomy, we both worship it and fear it. It has become our God, it is all we know. ![]() where all we have been left with is the plastic of the past. We are consumed in mind and body by remaining filth. We come from future wasteland, the depths of the dystopia. Through his own eye he enables himself as a portal through the lens into the other worlds of these individuals to whom he feels connected with. This has evolved out of Iain’s innovative ability to recognise talented individuals and creative qualities inside communities who share a collective consciousness. Iain Mckell through this process aims to portray a celebration of what he finds beautiful. First the New Romantics with a mottled grey, second the New Gypsies with a turquoise green and now the final in the triptych, the Re-Psychos with a pastel pink. Over a lifetime career in between other styles of work he has created a trilogy using the same craft practice and a central aesthetic theme involving a canvas backdrop in an open air / ambient studio with natural light. In many ways RePsycho : RePunk reflects Iain’s previous work depicting the attitude from the Punk era but with a Modern and environmental distortion, 40 years later. This also permeates into the imagery of how that influenced him as a young photographer. ![]() The early works in this exhibition are, imbued with its attitude of punk rather than the literalness of the ‘punk rocker’. The portraits are set against a pink canvas backdrop along side other images shot in the Tottenham Marsh landscape where he has manipulated the sky to a pink hue in order to create a dream like, other worldly and magical atmosphere. The contrasting black and white installation of the Re-Punk series is set against the vivid colours of the Re-Pyscho creatures. Alongside this is an installation of 34 Black and white monographs titled Re-Punk which is a series of unseen monographs from Weymouth and London during the late 70s and early 80s.Īlthough social documentary is his premise in his work practice, these images transcend into fine art through his close working relationship with his female muses. 1-30 September This exhibition by Artist Iain Mckell shows 16 colour monographs of an all women neo-native performance tribe living in Tottenham – The RePsychos. ![]()
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