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John Riddy's images are meditations on the individuality and poetry of specific, mostly deserted locations, ranging from landscapes to architecture and the built environment. In his pictures, time, atmosphere and spatial illusion are compressed and extended in ways that seek to defeat the normal expectations of photographic description. (Text by Paul Bonnaventura.)

Biography
John Riddy (b. 1959 in Northampton) studied a BA at Chelsea School of Art 1980-1983 and continued to do an MA Painting at Chelsea School of Art 1983-1984. Riddy completed a Sargent Fellowship at the British School of Rome in 1997 and Photographic Glimpses at ARCO and Durham Cathedral and was commissioned in 2003 by the Victoria & Albert Museum to produce Room 101 with Rachel Withers. One of the most distinctive voices in British contemporary photography, John Riddy's practice exists in a singular relationship to a particular photographic inheritance. His photography is made in the belief that clear photographic description allows for the most complex and unique of images. He is represented in public and private collections worldwide, and his work has recently been included in the touring exhibition 100 Photographs: A Collection by Bruce Bernard, Some Trees at the Neuer Aachener Kunstverein in Germany and Cloud Images: From Constable to Richter at the Aargauer Kunsthaus in Switzerland, and in the UK pavilion at Aichi Expo 2005 in Japan. Selected recent solo exhibitions also include Views from Shin-Fuji at the Victoria & Albert Museum, London 2006, Skies, Galerie Paul Andriesse Skies, Frith Street Gallery, London 2004, Lawrence Markey, New York 2001, Camden Arts Centre, London, De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill-on-Sea, 2000. Selected group shows include To Here, Bloomberg Space, London and Responding to Rome 1995 - 2005, Estorick Collection, London 2006, Still Life, Rio de Janeiro/Sao Paulo, Brazil, Furniture by Ray & Charles Eames with photographs by John Riddy, My Modern, Amsterdam 2003. John Riddy is represented by Frith Street Gallery, London.

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