In Reality

FINN MANFORD, has chosen to photograph tourist spots at moments when they are empty of their usual crowds. This Danish photographer combines an eye for chaste architectural forms with an exuberant use of colour.

A shot of an austere little forest of furled umbrellas on an empty beach at Deauville combines the melancholy of this deserted place and its silver-tinged cloud formation with the zest of the pure-toned reds, blues and yellows of the umbrellas. Ordered space is the guiding principle of Manfords pictures, and many of his images look almost like Renaissance exersises in perspective. Straight lines and symmetries are sought out and highlighted.

Looking at his shot of a swimmingpool in Denmark, you take in the pure reflections in the still water, the lines of light repeted above and below the water line. Composition and coloring are so pure that you long for some uncontrolled abandon, a ripple in the water, say, or a child running along the edge, to dislodge the eye and release you.

Manford works in the footsteps of the new colour photography, artist such as Stephen Shore, Joel Meyerowitz and Richard Misrach, who have been preoccupied with the abstract qualities of colour, rather than its rendering of the object. But Manford seems to have extended their reach with his particular interest in the colour of light.

Manfords shots depict the commonplace, see the uncoupled rusting caravan in Monument valley or the duckboards separating two tennis courts on a beach.

But his sedulously framing eye and his sensitivity to light and colour allow you to dream your way into their mild and unresisting beauty.

The Times, 22 January 2003

About Finn Manford

Born in Kolding Denmark in 1954. Qualified advertising photographer in 1985. Freelance photographer since 1992, specialising in architecture and the arts.

Prizes / Scholarships:

3 year scholarship - The Danish Art Foundation 2001
The Danish Ministry of Culture: Book published 1996 by Rhodos

Exhibitions:

2003 - Focus Gallery, London
2002 - San Francisco Photo, USA
2001-2003 - L.A.Photo, Santa Monica, USA
2000-2003 - Paris Photo, Louvre, Paris
1997 - Fotografisk Center, Copenhagen
1987 & 1996 - Museet for fotokunst, Odense
1993 - Galleri Image, Århus

Represented by Focus Gallery, London and Northern Light gallery, Copenhagen.

From the Press:

The use of colour in photography is certainly no new discovery, and yet Manford breathes new life into the colour palette and uses his subtle and unique ability to blend reality with almost fantastical and dreamlike tones, creating breathtakingly beautiful images.

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