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Ray Kyte
Ray Kyte started his fine art career as a painter, achieving considerable
success during the early 80's, exhibiting widely including the Pompidou
Centre Paris, the ICA and Fischer Fine Art in London, the Walker Art Gallery
in Liverpool and the Everard Read Gallery in Johannesburg. His work is held
in public collections such as DeBeers CSO and the University of Liverpool.
At the same time he also maintained a parallel career as a graphic designer
and later, a commercial photographer.
More recently, having returned to his artistic roots, he has concentrated on
fine art photography. Amongst numerous projects, he has been working on a
series of constructed 'Still Lives' which refer directly to his visual
knowledge and love of photography. Instigated following a viewing of the
work of master photographer Josef Sudek who stated "everything around us,
dead or alive, in the eyes of a crazy photographer mysteriously takes on
many variations, so that a seemingly dead object comes to life through light
or by its surroundings... to capture some of this - I suppose that's
lyricism."
Greatly influenced by seeing Sudek's work in Prague and his general interest
in early Czech photography, Kyte has now set his own style and states in his
book 'In the Manner of Ray Kyte' published in 2006, "This collection
presents a personal take on the work of the great master known for creating
superb works from the jumble of material readily at hand in his studio.
After seeing his photgraph 'Still Life after Caravaggio' dated 1956, it
occurred to me that I might photograph my own version of that picture.
Little did I realise at the time that that initial thought would turn into a
whole series of photographs inspired by Sudek's work. Over the following
weeks, utilising similar objects and 'things just laying around in the
studio' one shot led to another, gradually building into a body of work that
would finally result in this book."
Kyte has established a very distinct style and visual voice that echoes some
of the mastery that has gone before. His meticulous attention to detail
combined with his great knowledge of photography moves the arena of
constructed still lives effortlessly toward the future.
A two-part exhibition of Kyte's work will be held in the gallery early in
2007. His book 'In the Manner Of' is also available through the gallery.