artist in residence

This season's resident artist is Andy Hughes from St. Ives. Andy has just launched his new book 'Dominant Wave Theory' at the Eden Project in Cornwall featuring 150 photographs of different locations from California and West Cornwall, showing the impact of beach waste on our environment. You can buy 'Dominant Wave Theory' at Amazon or all good book shops. Visit Andy's personal website for more.

Here's what Tim Smit, CEO of the Eden Project had to say:

"When you run a place like the Eden Project you have the privilege of receiving presentations and meeting literally hundreds of artists who either want to get involved on the ground or who simply want a space in which to exhibit their work. After a while you become blasé because in truth most of what you see is good but derivative of something else.

Andy Hughes is something else entirely. I first came across his work on a calendar for Surfers Against Sewage (SAS), the campaigning organisation to clean up our seas and beaches. The pictures were startling because they forced you to look at familiar things through a different lens. The commonplace, the unwanted detritus of everyday life was here given its moment in the spotlight, a dignity returned. In an elegant way the camera caused a transformation from trash to art and, in so doing, stimulated the imagination to consider the nature of waste and even consumption itself.

"In Andy Hughes' hands a discarded water bottle can have the visual impact of a Dale Chihuly glasswork." Tim Smit

In a sense, the knowledge that these pieces have been abandoned lends them a mystique and melancholy that objects of desire could only dream of having.

Andy Hughes is a singular voice showing us something uncomfortable yet sweetened by the beauty of the image. This is something most great artists aspire to and Andy is, in my view, well on the way to carving an important place for himself in the top rank of photographers. Enjoy this book - I guarantee that many of the images will linger long in the imagination."