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Publications
The body of work evolved from a series of regular night walks undertaken over a 12-month period (2020 – 2021). The pictures were made within a 1-mile radius of the artists’ home in south London. The contiguity and darkness in the work creates a tension between interior and exterior, mind and world, familiar and strange. The sequence and edit, knits together an uneasy psycho geography of fact and fiction, vernacular and otherworldly; a somnambulistic account of nocturnal curiosity and quotidian peculiarity. The title of the book alludes to proximity and introspection, and also acknowledges the sensibility and atmosphere evoked by the music and lyrics of the Joy Division album of the same name.
Softcover with dust jacket
15.5 x 21cm
304 pages
Double Obelus Editions
ISBN 978-1-739-4646-0-8
October 2023
€40 £35 $45
See the 'Store' section for purchase details
From 1998 to 2005 Neil Drabble photographed American teenager, Roy, as he grew from adolescence to early manhood. On one level this extensive body of work can be viewed as a fascinating document of an always compelling transition. Closer scrutiny reveals further nuances; a collaboration, a partnership, a personal portrait and at the same time a universal picture of adolescence.
Drabble chose not to depict significant events that might appear in a family album nor definitive moments associated with documentary photography. Instead, these photographs concentrate on the listless, off-scene periods, the ‘in between moments’ of everyday life. This focus on the marginal passages of disregarded time situates the viewer at the heart of adolescence, defined as the period between childhood and adulthood, suspended between longing (for the deferred promise of adulthood) and regret (for the loss of childhood as refuge.)
By photographing the same person repeatedly and intimately over their formative years, a sense of mirroring began to emerge, reawakening something of the artist’s own adolescent self, blurring the line between portrait and self-portrait.
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Includes texts by Lynne Tillman
Embossed hardback with tipped-in image
22 x 28 cm, 132 pages
ISBN 978-1-912339-50-1
October 2019
€40 £35 $45
Tree Tops Tall published by SteidlMACK 2003
Tree Tops Tall is a series of pictures made by Neil Drabble over the course of the last few years. It is a collection determined not by the type or site of the trees photographed but instead by the fact that tree tops against a bright sky provide a motif for a certain state of mind, for a formal expression of the self. Each picture has been shot from the standpoint
of a child, looking upwards with awe at the wonder and grandeur of the natural world, a perspective similarly communicated by book's large format and its uninterrupted sequence
of 40 vivid color images, each spread across a double page. Applying his particularly intimate and studied approach, Drabble has produced a body of work that emphasizes the aesthetic pleasures of seeing and the boundless possibilities of finding beauty in our surroundings.
Publisher : SteidlMACK October. 2003.
Language : English
Hardcover : 40 colour plates
Dimensions : 28.5 x 1.3 x 37cm
ISBN: 9783882439175
Into The Woods: Trees In Photography published by Thames & Hudson 2019
Work from Tree Tops Tall was included in the exhibition 'Into The Woods: Trees In Photography' at the V&A Museum , London, 2017-2018 (accompanying publication published by Thames & Hudson). Curated by Martin Barnes.
Artists include:
Ansel Adams, Robert Adams, Eugene Atget, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Harry Callaghan, Neil Drabble, Mitch Epstein, Robert Frank, Lee Friedlander, Masahisa Fukase, Man Ray, Jem Southam, Edward Steichen, Alfred Steiglitz, Paul Strand, Fox Talbot, Wolfgang Tillmans.
Publisher : Thames and Hudson Ltd; 1st edition (24 Oct. 2019)
Language : English
Hardcover : 192 pages
ISBN-10 : 0500480532
ISBN-13 : 978-0500480533
Dimensions : 20.32 x 2.29 x 25.65 cm
Sampler published by Arboretum, 2008
Sampler presents archive extracts of commissioned portraits and personal work over a ten year period.
Sitters include: Woody Allen, David Hare, Missy Elliot, Martin Amis, Lemmy, David Byrne, Stephen King.
Publisher : Arboretum, 2008.
Softcover : 46 colour plates
Dimensions : 7.5 x 0.7 x 10 cm
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