When Britain voted to leave the EU back in 2016, photographer Robert Darch felt an all-encompassing heaviness and sadness, uncertain what the future will bring and concerned about the freedom we lost. Rather than trying to rationalise the decision and to make sense of it, he started taking pictures to visualise his emotions. The Island is now available as a self-published photobook.

Photography Robert Darch

The Island is a new book published by British artist-photographer Robert Darch. Originally conceived as a response to Brexit, the poetic black and white photographs convey the heaviness that he felt and reflect Robert’s anxieties and fears about a decision that will affect younger generations for years to come. The Island draws on formative memories and past emotions to realise a sense of place that reflects the times we are living in.

The Island has an overriding sense of melancholy emphasised by the bleak monochrome imagery and cold winter light, shifting from dark corners, intimate portraits, misty landscapes and isolated figures. There is an unreality, a dreamlike quality and a horror that is prophetic of events to come in The Island.

“How can photography negotiate a world where reality has become odder than fiction? Darch’s latest series, The Island, provides an answer. Landscapes and portraits together capture a country racked with tension. They are shot in black-and-white, and suffused with an almost palpable melancholy. The sea, emblematic of Britain’s decision to detach itself from its neighbours, is a persistent and forbidding presence.”

British Journal of Photography

About Robert

Robert Darch is a British artist-photographer based in the South West of England. He has published and exhibited widely and his photographs reside in public and private collections.

He holds an MFA with distinction in Photographic Arts and a MA with distinction in Photography & the Book from Plymouth University. He also has a BA with honours in Documentary Photography from Newport, Wales and is an associate lecturer in photography at Plymouth University.

To see more of his work, visit his website or follow him on Instagram

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