Liam Bailey | Reasons to be Cheerful
© Liam Bailey
© Liam Bailey
© Liam Bailey
© Liam Bailey
Photofusion is delighted to announce Reasons to be Cheerful, a solo photography exhibition by London-based photographer Liam Bailey. Flying the flag for photographs that aim to amuse and entertain rather than confound the viewer, this exhibition embodies an unashamedly simple idea: a celebration of 25 years of producing images.
Bailey began working behind the scenes in television as an aston operator at the BBC before becoming a full time professional photographer in 1993. Alongside his exhibition work and publications, he has continued supplying portraits and documentary images to the editorial and design sectors. His photographic career has been framed by the seismic shift from analogue to digital image-making, with people and personalities being his focus of interest.
Reasons to be Cheerful includes a selection of black & white images from some of Bailey’s earliest published work: portraits of attendees at the World Clown Convention at Bognor Regis – including the Spidermen band on a fag break in the rain – as well as a striking set of images taken on regular trips to New York. Moving into digital territory, this exhibition provides an opportunity to present a selection of images, shown for the first time in the UK, taken from Bailey’s second book, Forever England (2006). This work takes a social documentary approach examining the lives of the four-inch tall inhabitants of Bekonscot, Britain’s first model village. These strangely compelling portraits of tiny villagers living out their silent, static and anonymous lives provide a poignant counterpoint to Bailey’s third series that centres on legendary icons: captivating images of Al Gore, Ken Livingstone and Margaret Thatcher share wall space with the business-documentary shot that inspired the signature image of the hit TV series‘Mad Men’.
Bailey’s quarter century photographic career concludes with a slightly more unique set of portraits, which began with an encounter that saw a match-torn football get wedged in the wheel arch of his car. Shot under studio lighting with all the stand-alone drama of a celebrity portrait, and reproduced at an unfamiliar scale, this motley team of chanced-upon footballs, tennis balls, rugby balls, golf balls and basketballs take on a new and surreal appearance – revealing powerful, often comic, physiognomies.
In 1996 Bailey’s first book was published, titled Glastonbury – The Festival (Alfredo Press, 1996), followed by his most recent addition, Forever England (Dewi Lewis Publishing, 2006). During the past ten years Bailey has combined his professional practice with teaching at the London College of Fashion. He received an MA in Photography from London College of Communication in 2006, and in recent years has been a regular portfolio reviewer at the annual Rhubarb-Rhubarb International Festival of the Image and a member of the Association of Photographers.