“The emerging talent of photographer Henry Gwilliam offers the viewer extraordinary backstage glimpses behind some of the traditional luxuries and patrimony of twenty-first-century Britain. In distinctive muted tones, and with an unflinching eye and remarkable technical proficiency, he shows the skill and craft behind the stalking and culling of deer on the great estates of the Scottish Highlands, and the cultivation and care going into the kitchens of a Michelin-starred restaurant (since closed). There is no romanticisation of work or worker here: it is serious, careful and sometimes uncomfortable. His picture of a damaged 1950s American car in the seaside village of Jaywick, Essex, named as the most ‘deprived’ place in Britain, serves as an apt metaphor for the national fate at present. A lovingly preserved, nostalgic symbol of westward-looking freedom and prosperity, it is now stranded. However, the forlorn traffic cone suggests some concern for the safety of others and that the situation might be viewed as merely a temporary embarrassment.”

- Dr Marius Kwint

Reader in Visual Culture, University of Portsmouth

Contact: henry@openstream.co.uk