Brynley Odu Davies
ARTISTS PORTRAITS. PHOTOGRAPHY BY BRYNLEY ODU DAVIES AND COURTESY OF STUDIO WEST GALLERY PAINTINGS COURTESY OF THE ARTISTS WWW.STUDIOWEST.ART @BRYNLEY.ODU.DAVIES
In 2020, when the Covid-19 pandemic put a sudden stop to Brynley’s burgeoning career as a music photographer, he inadvertently found his calling. With little else to do, he began taking studio portraits of local South London based artists who he had befriended during his daily lockdown walks. Brynley posted the first few images on Instagram, and was inundated with requests from other artists – suddenly, he realised he had hit on something rather magical and a monumental new project was born. Shooting at least five times a week and travelling across the entire UK, to date Brynley has photographed over 200 contemporary artists in their studios.
The resultant images exist as a remarkable archive, presenting a panoptic, nationwide view of the creatives who are shaping the UK’s emerging art world, and will come to define its future. Despite featuring a number of newly-established global talents, Brynley’s project aims to platform all young artists equally. His intent was not to chase the most successful or noteworthy artists, but instead to create a truly diverse, widespread and reflective record of the many individuals who make up the UK’s emerging art scene.
Looking beyond capital cities and well-known art schools, Brynley let the project take him everywhere; from the shores of southern England up to the Scottish coast, across to Wales and on a ferry to Northern Ireland.
His genuine approach and kind nature, meanwhile, imbues the final images with warmth and openness – each artist willingly welcomes the viewer into their sacred studio space. For Brynley, one of the most important aspects of the project has been the relationships he has made along the way, with many of the subjects now counting among his best friends.
Brynley has just presented his very successful debut solo exhibition at STUDIO WEST, a Gallery in Notting Hill, London and is planning further London exhibitions and a book release for later in the year. Below are just some of Brynley Odu Davies artist studio portraits, accompanied by pieces created by each young talent. Personally, I always like to find parallels between the artist’s lifestyle and the work they do, a little weakness we have at PWA Mag.
