"Memories of ceramic dolls, teddy bears, costumes and masks played with as a child, become the props of restaged moments in his photographs in child-like dramatisations of paternal loss and gender tension."
Although he uses thoroughly contemporary digital photography processes, his work adopts some of the structure, themes and symbolism of Renaissance paintings. His careful, even frugal, use of light, coupled with the unusual but intelligent characterizations of his ‘subjects’ placed within mundane but theatrical backgrounds, evokes Caravaggio-like scenes of unsettling gloom.
Memories of ceramic dolls, teddy bears, costumes and masks played with as a child, become the props of restaged moments in his photographs in child-like dramatisations of paternal loss and gender tension. In some images, he substitutes his father or mother; in others, they substitute him.
These dramatisations become self-portraits as he recalls & reconsiders the development of his own identity and the impact that had on his familial relationships... or should that be the impact his familial relationships had upon the development of his own identity?
Either way, Jonny Briggs creates strikingly articulate images that challenge the ‘self’, digging up the very roots of ‘self’. This really is self-portraiture in the purest sense.
Something I find quite astonishing and unique to Jonny’s work, in my experience at least, is that his mother and father actually participate in his fearless and determined self-exploration. Are they somehow attempting to subvert or trivialise the work by being there? Or are they simply making amends for the upbringing that made Jonny create these images in the first place?
I asked Jonny about this the first time I spoke to him and he insisted that, although his parents rarely talk about the work, they willingly take part and even attend Private Views with him. Whatever their motivation, I think their presence is intriguing and adds significant value to this extraordinary work.
