05/10/2007 - SEPTEMBER 07 FAIR: The Exhibition: Imagine Light by Warren Du Preez & Nick Thornton Jones.
Presenting a rather atypical duo of image creators.
South African-born Warren Du Preez has never studied photography, is self-taught and obsessed by images and the process of their creation. Has endlessly explored the theatre, scenic arts, lighting and catwalk shows. Moved to London and explored Europe. Discovered Florence with total wonder and a revelation: the architecture, painting, the expertise of the artisans, cinema and design all helped him to understand…he would be a photographer. Returned to London where he decided to stay. His professional career begins.
In 1998 he meets Nick Thornton-Jones, artistic director of the Sunday Times and graduate of graphic arts and illustration at Gwent College of Higher Education. Firstly worked for The London Design Company, then for Worthingtons, another commercial design group. Not feeling free enough artistically speaking, and too closed-in in the « corporate » world, his arrival at the Sunday Times was a veritable revelation allowing him to develop a new artistic dimension, closer to his aspirations and dreams of the time.
Together they create « The Studio » and acquire a solid reputation for their work on the frontier of graphic art and photography. The originality of this pair resides in the fact that they choose to c reate in a collective manner, each project based on a mutual respect for the other’s disciplines. They have created advertising campaigns for fashion labels such as Cartier, Levi’s, Hermès and Issey Miyake. They have also offered their talent to artists such as Bjork or Massive Attack, for whom they have imagined campaigns and album covers.
Their style is marked by a very strong graphic direction, playing on materials and colours, but also lighting which they treat in a very particular manner, using highly personalized work methods. These techniques are their signature and characterize the majority of their work. The result is hyper-visual images - limit electroshock - a dream-like science fiction universe peopled with cultural reminiscences. PAPP 2007-2008’s image has been entrusted to them in collaboration with Publicis 133.
Dynamic staging and an « arty » manner of presenting the Parisian woman, veritable « fashion goddess » setting the tone and inspiring the new trends, whilst tomorrow’s fashion universes whirl around her. Warren Du Preez & Nick Thornton-Jones are the trade fair’s guest stars, their presence confirming exactly what it is: a major cultural event.
In the airy, 500sqm gallery on the ground floor we will discover the strong professional moments of this duo, Londoners by adoption. A frontierless talent exquisitely corresponding to the strong trend of our time…fashion as a global culture.
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