They were my landscape by Phoebe Kiely builds a fragmented picture of a place that is at once personal and anonymous. Based in Manchester, Kiely compulsively catalogues her urban and suburban surroundings, drawing attention to prosaic spectacles and passers-by. In her book, the cracked concrete of vernacular architecture, or the flattened feathers of a pigeon lying on a road are granted the same scrutiny as a young man smoking at a bus stop, or a walking mother carrying her young child. Echoing the fragility of everyday life, Kiely’s elusive sequence of black-and-white photographs vacillates between portraits, objects and street scenes. Within this mutable body of ongoing work, she attempts to find a sense of self.
Phoebe Kiely
They were my landscape
About the Artist
Artist WebsitePhoebe Kiely (b.1991) lives and works in the UK. She is currently undertaking a commission funded by the Arts Council for West Coast Photo 2021. She received her BA from Manchester School of Art in 2015. Her work has been shown internationally with exhibitions in Liverpool, Brighton, London, Poland and Bulgaria. She has been featured in articles for British Journal of Photography, The Observer Magazine and Paper Journal. Her most recent award nominations are the Paul Huf and the Paul Hamlyn Foundation Award. They were my landscape, her first book, was published by MACK in 2018.