The Terry O’Neill Award is a competition designed to acknowledge contemporary photographers who produce work that falls into the criteria of reportage, documentary, landscape, portraiture or fine art photography, and conveys a convincing narrative. This year’s Terry O’Neill Award was won by Antony Crossfield whose work titled Foreign Body centres visually on the human body. Crossfield’s morphed forms address the concept of identity as he, in the artist’s own words, “seek(s) to question the basic assumption that the self is distinct from the other, to portray physical identity and psychological identity as unstable and permeable.” The artist’s somewhat unsettling forms intertwine flesh and limbs, producing an innovative composition.
Second prize went to Edgar Martins for his untitled series of minimalist images of airports, addressing, as he calls it the “generic exurban frontier” of contemporary landscape. Incorporating mainly the colour yellow against an almost entirely black background, Martins’s photographs distinctively confront the idea of the landscape, offering the viewer an alternative to understanding this particular genre of photography.
The third place prize was awarded to Edmund Clark for his series, Still Life Killing Time , for which he photographed E Wing, HMP Kingston, Portsmouth, Britain’s specific accommodation for aging prisoners who were incapable or disinclined to receive parole. The images consist of personal objects and the unoccupied living spaces of these inmates.
The Shortlisted photographers this year include Asa Johannesson, Tessa Bunney, Emma Critchley and Sophie Lewis, Tom Lovelace, Steve Sabella, Helga Steppan, and Laura Pannack. The exhibition of these photographs as well as the top three winners will be on exhibition at the Fulham Palace Gallery from 9th November to 22nd February 2009.
For more information go to www.jpgbattle.com/oneillaward/
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