London-based photographer Robin Cracknell explores themes of love, loss and memory using a unique non-digital process combining traditional film photography and cinematography, and shooting with old, sometimes damaged cameras and salvaged 35mm cine film. In his longterm series Childhood, single father Cracknell offers a stylized, personal vision of childhood through the world of his only son Jake.
Born in India and raised in America, Robin Cracknell moved to London in 1987, where he began collecting discarded film cuttings from the projection booth of the Institute of Contemporary Arts London. These found film cuttings would later serve as the new “emulsion” for Cracknell’s photographic work, which has appeared on several magazine covers and over 300 book jackets. Childhood was included in the top ten of over 12,000 artists’ works on Saatchi Art, and was selected for a show curated by readers of The Guardian as well as noted gallerists, critics and artists. His work has since been exhibited internationally. Images from Childhood were published in Thames and Hudson’s “Family Photography Now” in Spring 2016, and a selection of the artist’s notebooks illustrating the process and concept behind the series were also featured in the acclaimed 2014 Thames and Hudson publication “Photographers’ Sketchbooks.”
SELECT COLLECTIONS
The National Portrait Gallery, London, UK
The Victoria and Albert Museum, London, UK
Fundacion Privada Sorigue, Lleida, Spain
