Nick Waplington

Nick Waplington (born 1965) is a British artist and photographer based in New York City.

Waplington traveled extensively during his childhood as his father worked as a scientist in the nuclear industry. He studied art at West Sussex College of Art & Design in Worthing, Trent Polytechic in Nottingham and the Royal College of Art in London.

From 1984 Waplington would regularly visit his grandfather on the Broxtowe Estate in Aspley, Nottingham, where he began to photograph his immediate surroundings. Friends and neighbours of his family became his subject matter of choice. He continued with this work on and off for the next 15 years and from it came two books (Living Room and Weddings, Parties, Anything) and numerous exhibitions.

His book Other Edens (1994) focused on environmental concerns and, although it was conceived and worked on at the same time as 'Living Room', was seen as a major departure in style and content. This work is global in nature and its ideas are ambiguous and multi-layered.

Waplington's work was included in the touring exhibition, The Dead, curated by Val Williams and Greg Hobson, which opened at the National Museum of Photography, Film & Television in 1995.

Other bodies of work include Safety in Numbers (1997), a bleak study of the ecstasy drug culture in the mid-1990s, and The Indecisive Memento, a global road trip where the journey itself was the artwork (1999).

Waplington's next published work was Truth or Consequences (2001), a pictorial game based on the history of photography using the town of Truth or Consequences, New Mexico as a backdrop. In this work the rules of the 1950s television show inspired the concept of Waplington's photographic project.

Learn how to die the easy way (2002), Waplington's contribution to a group exhibition in part of the Venice Biennale 2001, expresses a yearning for the artistic and commercial freedom that the web might yet expose and a celebration of the dislocated reason behind conventional thoughts and media.

...
Wikipedia