I’m a London born photographer, print maker and street artist, working within a paste-up / street art tradition.
I’d been working as a commercial photographer since the mid 1990’s but in 2008
I decided to create the moniker ‘Donk’ to anonymously explore a series of new personal visual ideas within the context of unsanctioned street art.
I was curious about the creative potential of such a direct dialogue with my environment and the local community but also fascinated by the ephemeral aspect of placing work into the outdoors.
I’ve always been drawn to allegorical images that invite imaginative interpretation. Like story book images without their text, you’re left with a series of emotional visual themes, symbolism and ornamentation
that seem to point you in a certain direction but that ultimately encourages you to make your own connections and attach your own meanings.
I try to achieve a level of this open-endedness within my own work.
Largely I use my own photography to construct the images which are often inhabited by friends and family.
The subject matter alludes to aspects of growing up or the journey from innocence to a more adult awareness but also touches on social themes on equality and visibility.
More broadly I attempt to remix elements of urban culture and history across a timeline of my own making, at once referencing the past and the contemporary to make playful and anachronistic connections between universal themes of human strength, vulnerability and the passage of time.
