Leica Gallery, London, presents the exhibition Simon Wheatley: Silverlink. The exhibition will show 21 of Wheatley’s images from the series Silverlink, all shot with the Leica M system and exclusively printed for Leica Gallery London for the first time. You can visit the exhibition from the 17th May – 21st July 2024.
From Leica Gallery: From the 17th of May to the 21st of July 2024, Leica Gallery London presents an exhibition by London-based photographer, Simon Wheatley.
Simon Wheatley is a London-based photographer that has become increasingly renowned for his raw and intimate photographic portrayal of the city and its communities. His first book ‘Don’t Call Me Urban! The Time of Grime’ is recognised as one of the most influential UK photobooks of recent times.
Between 1998 to 2010 he photographed the overland train service he first encountered as The North London Line, which then became Silverlink after its privatisation. After extensive global travel, he continued to satisfy his wanderlust by instead travelling locally, exploring a part of the city he didn’t particularly know that well – moving up and down this line that ran across London’s northern inner-suburbs.
The series, which Wheatley initially envisaged as a documentation of the social polarisation of neighbourhoods continued until the Kodachrome film (which he chose having read that Bruce Davidson also used this film for his series ‘Subway’) was discontinued. Not only was this a poignant full-stop in terms of photographic craft but also in wrapping up an empty testimony to the Blair years after New Labour’s failure to fulfil their promise to repeal The Railways Act of 1993.
As well as highlighting the diverse nature of a capital city, this work is also a love letter to London and the people Wheatley met as he rode north to south, east to west. It’s a tender testament of how people in expansively different situations exist in proximity – this doesn’t only create a divide but a closeness. Some of the first trips he took were to the eastern terminus at North Woolwich – an industrial area near the river Thames. Here he met a man called Barry who had once owned an antiques shop in the Portobello Road before losing his shop when new landlords priced him out of his property as prices soared in the 1980s.
His despair had turned him into an alcoholic when Wheatley found him on a bench with strong beverages and exotic foods, reflecting the life he had once known. “A big part of my photographic work in London revolves around the theme of gentrification, so Barry was perhaps the most poignant encounter,” says Wheatley.
The exhibition will show 21 of Wheatley’s images from the series Silverlink, all shot with the Leica M system and exclusively printed for Leica Gallery London for the first time. All works are for sale together with signed copies of Simon Wheatley’s book ‘Silverlink’.
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