Rhys Bailey

Artist statement

 

Rhys Bailey

 

Rhys Bailey (1996, United Kingdom) is an artist who mainly works with photography. By applying a poetic and often metaphorical language, Bailey formalizes the coincidental and emphasizes the conscious process of composition that is behind the seemingly random works. The thought processes, which are supposedly private, highly subjective and unfiltered in their references to dream worlds, are frequently revealed as assemblages.

 

His photos directly respond to the surrounding environment and use everyday experiences from the artist as a starting point. Often these are framed instances that would go unnoticed in their original context. With a conceptual approach, he wants to amplify the astonishment of the spectator by creating compositions or settings that generate tranquil poetic images that leave traces and balances on the edge of recognition and alienation.

 

His works feature coincidental, accidental and unexpected connections which make it possible to revise art history and, even better, to complement it. Combining unrelated aspects lead to surprising analogies. By experimenting with aleatoric processes, he tries to approach a wide scale of subjects in a multi-layered way. He likes to involve the viewer in a way that is sometimes physical and believes in the idea of function following form in a work.

 

His works appear as dreamlike images in which fiction and reality meet, well-known tropes merge, meanings shift, past and present fuse. Time and memory always play a key role. 

 

Rhys Bailey currently lives and works in Bromley.