This exhibition started from a conversation at a northern soul night at Art Bank in Shepton Mallet, Somerset. Art Bank is a combined event/cafe/gallery space. Gill and I are lifelong northern soul fans, and I was DJing at Art Bank, while Gill was one the attendees. We have been friends for a long time and were obviously aware of each other’s photography, but we had never thought of putting on a show together, quite simply because our work is so different. Gill is a ‘proper’ photographer’s photographer; I prefer to think of myself as an artist who takes pictures (even though I spent a long time working as a professional commercial/architectural photographer, when ‘doing it properly’ was a necessity).
Gill’s work is slow, thoughtful and considered – she was brought up on National Geographic and that remains a strong influence on her work (see show statement below for more) – whereas I wander round the back streets of towns and cities, scooping up all manner of dubious stuff into the lens. That’s not to say my work is not thoughtful or considered, just that spontaneity has a key role too, and I care less about the ‘well-crafted photograph’ than recording what someone else has done on the street. My first photographic influence was William Eggleston. I liked the way he shot, often with unconventional composition, the ordinary stuff of his home turf. Later came Richard Wentworth. I was drawn to his focus on the creativity of the uncelebrated artist, the things ordinary people do anonymously on the street to make do and get by. Then came Richard Prince. I realised I was doing a similar thing to him: in shooting in towns and cities, one inevitably appropriates and changes bits of the work of others: advertising, display, architecture, graffiti and such. Finally, I came across Eugene Atget and realised he was doing 100+ years ago what I’m doing now, albeit in different ways and places, and necessarily in those days only in black and white.
And it dawned in this conversation that the difference between Gill's work and mine was the key to the show; that our radically different approaches would create fascinating juxtapositions. What connects us is that we are both (arguably) landscape photographers, but our take on the world could hardly be more different. The first working title was, probably inevitably, ‘Chalk and Cheese’. This was quickly dropped because neither of us wanted to be thought of as ‘cheese’. ‘The finished title, ‘On the Road’, came because we recognised that travel played a huge part in our work, plus we liked the Jack Kerouak reference, and this led to the opening night having a beatnik theme and involving late-50s/early-60s jazz and RnB.
I hope, dear reader, you were able to see it. It ran for a month from the start of May ’25 and was publicised widely on social media. If not, we hope to take it to some other gallery, though we have yet to find one. Maybe you know a place…?
I should add, I suppose, that none of this delving into photography means I've stopped painting - I see both as parts of the same exploration of the characteristics and uses of space. Painting news to follow.

Show statement:

ON THE ROAD...
On the Road is a photography exhibition by Gillian Moore and Stephen Riley. Both are concerned with space and the environment, but they come from radically different viewpoints. This exhibition is inspired by those contrasting outlooks.
Moore travels the world capturing the majesty of nature, from the sweeping plains of North America to the seascapes of Northern Europe and the ice floes of Patagonia, to the more reserved beauty of her native Britain. Moore was first drawn to photography in childhood by her grandfather’s National Geographic collection. She was given her first camera at the age of eight, and that early influence continues to inspire her Ansel Adams-esque approach to landscape. Since the 1980s, Moore’s work has graced numerous publications, including national newspapers, Sunday magazines and travel literature. Her contemplative, poetic work explores the vast open spaces and intimate textures of the spaces most would like to see, but few do, except in images.
Conversely, Riley’s work explores what we all routinely pass by but seldom register. After studying for an MA in Art and Architecture in Canterbury, Riley completed a PhD in Fine Art at Leeds University, which focused on the urban environment as an ever-changing canvas where sensory overload, desire and disdain, the ordered and the anarchic clash and overlay. Riley’s photography – described as ‘brilliant’ by Tate Gallery director Andrew Brighton – views the human-made environment as one replete with semiotic messages competing for our attention; where magnificent manifestations of corporate power are challenged by entropy, absurdity and anonymous traces of human feeling and activity. Riley has exhibited since childhood, professionally since 1991, and has work in collections in France, Germany, the UK and USA.
The contrast between these two photographic artists does not end with the subject matter – their techniques, too, are opposed. Moore’s method involves a full-frame camera, large lenses, tripod and long, thoughtful exposures. Riley, in capturing the ‘stuff of street’, shoots spontaneously, sometimes using an SLR, but often a compact and even occasionally a disposable camera, so the directness of the method matches that of the subject matter.