Stephen McCoy has spent 45 years living, working, and photographing on Merseyside. “Proximity” explores his deep connection with the people and places of the region, tracing the development of his photographic practice over the decades.
The exhibition features a selection of works from his major projects, spanning from 1979 to the present, including two recent, ongoing sets of work.
From housing estates in Ainsdale to communities in Skelmersdale, from the demolition sites in Liverpool to the safe spaces of homes and gardens, from along the coastline to a touching and personal family journey – these projects, featuring a wide range of subjects and experimental ways of making pictures, celebrate the relationships that we create throughout our lives.
Stephen McCoy said:
“I have always felt that my best work shows a deep personal connection to the subject photographed, whether of people or place. A sense of place necessitates familiarity with an area; hence this exhibition is a distillation of a 45-year project, a continuing examination of my homeland, my Proximity.
For me photographs must have a balance between concept, technique and creativity. I do consider myself a documentary photographer, in the broadest sense; I photograph my view of the world and create order. Many of the photographs in the exhibition are from older projects and these have taken on a different kind of importance as time has passed.”
“Here are quotes by two photographers that I find most relevant. The first by Robert
Adams, a photographer whose work I greatly admire:
‘Landscape photography can offer us, I think, three verities – geography, autobiography, and metaphor. Geography is, if taken alone, sometimes boring, autobiography is frequently trivial, and metaphor can be dubious. But taken together… the three kinds of representation strengthen each other and reinforce what we all work to keep intact – an affection for life’.”
“And the second by William Christenberry, an American photographer and artist:
‘I don’t want my work thought about in terms of nostalgia. It is about place and sense of place. I only make pictures when I go home. I am not looking back longing for the past, but at the beauty of time and the passage of time’.”
The show will be accompanied by the exterior walls exhibition of a selection of Café Royal Books covers. Café Royal Books is an independent publisher founded by Craig Atkinson in 2005, dedicated to post-war photography from Britain, with a particular interest in unseen or overlooked work. Each book, published weekly in an accessible and affordable zine format, focuses on a single body of work by a single photographer. Stephen McCoy was featured in 16 of these, with the various projects spanning his entire photography career.
