Stephen Inggs

Stephen Inggs creates his large-scale black-and-white artwork by hand, using silver gelatin emulsion on cotton rag paper to create a painterly effect giving the work a timeless quality. The soft tactile nature of the watercolour paper acts as a trompe l’oeil, blurring the boundaries between photography, drawing and printmaking. This reflects his concern with the ‘dematerialisation of the digital age’ and his need to be involved in the physical making of an image, not simply reproduce one. His contemporary still lifes are intended to ‘slow-down time’ and allude to the historical vanitas still-life paintings which were woven with allegories around the transience of life, the passing of time and human fragility. This ‘disguised symbolism’ creates a pictorial language in which an ordinary object can convey a deeper meaning, often touching on culture, politics and society