"Simon Roberts travelled throughout England in a motorhome in search of the quintessentially English. Roberts's apparatus of choice for the series We English was a 5 x 4 large format camera

Roberts's photographs reside somewhere between documentary and pure landscape. Many of his images contain poignant vignettes set against dynamic panoramas. Camel Estuary is populated with staffage straining against one another. Their interaction enlivens the scene, while the tamed sea, blue sky and sweeping shore evoke the English tradition of land, leisure and pleasure.

A contemporary archive of Englishness; Roberts's work captures people, places and events beautifully. Figures in the landscape are small, but significant - the Arcadian shepherds and smiling rural folk of a Victorian landscape are replaced by windswept trekkers, crowded stadiums and post-modern reverie."

South Downs Way, West Sussex, 2007, © Simon Roberts.
Amerta Movement Workshop, Avenbury Henge, Wiltshire, 2008, © Simon Roberts.
Camel Estuary, Padstow, Cornwall, 2007, © Simon Roberts.

-Megan Conery

Simon Roberts photographs are on display as part of the Landmark: The Fields of Photography at Somerset House from 14 March - 28 April 2013.

Landmark: The Fields of Photography is part of Positive View Foundation

Simon Roberts

distortedarts.com