In 1977, when I was nearing the end of my degree course at Manchester Polytechnic, a photograph of mine was chosen for the book New British Image edited by Ron McCormick. This, I guess, was my first "success". The group exhibtion of the same name toured various venues in Britain (including The Side Gallery) in 1978.
After leaving Manchester Polytechnic I worked in a garage and Renault dealership for six months before obtaining employment as a Photographic Technician in Southport Art College. I made portraits of my work colleagues (the mechanics) before I left. Although heavily influenced by Walker Evans, August Sander and Chris Killip I realised that photographing friends and colleagues meant far more to me than photographing strangers.
In 1979 I had my first solo exhibtion at The Open Eye Gallery in Liverpool: The Fun Fair; photographs of Southport Pleasureland out of season, subsequently published by Cafe Royal Books as "Keep off Sexy Drugs". Peter Hagerty, the director of the Open Eye at the time, was very supportive of my work.
In 1984 I began to lecture at Hugh Baird College in Bootle, but was also commissioned to work as a Photographer in Residence in Skelmersdale by Merseyside Arts. Given an open brief I photographed the town and the populace, but even though I spent many days working there I could never loose the feeling that I was an intruder and my unease with photographing strangers resurfaced. I photographed people less and photographed the "evidence" of people instead.
Through the 1980's I continued to work on projects many of which were exhibited and published: The Housing Estates, Personal Space, Demolition Sites, River to River. I exhibited a selection of these photographs in 1987, taking over the entire Open Eye Gallery with the support of the then director John McDonald.
In 1990 I was in a group show - "In a New Light" - at The Bluecoat in Liverpool with fellow photographers Tom Wood, Peter Hagerty, Will Curwen and Sean Halligan. I showed work from an ongoing project: "The Plight of the Trolley". After this exhibtion I gave up exhibiting and pushing to have my work published. It was not until 2008 that Stephanie Wynne and I exhibited "Quiescence" as part of Liverpool Independents Biennial. Stephanie and I had formed the partnership McCoy Wynne in 1997 and we were finalists in The Liverpool Art Prize in 2009, we exhibited at The Look Festivals in 2011 and 2013 and most recently exhibited "Triangulation" at The Victoria Gallery and Museum in 2019. We continue to collaborate on commissions and personal projects and much of the work can be seen on this web site.
Over the past few years an interest in my "archive" work has grown and the photographs I had produced during the 1980's ( many of which had been rarely seen) are being exhibited and published, most noticeably at Les Rencontres de la Arles in 2019, curated by Isa Bonnet, "Home Sweet Home" published in 2019 by Textuel and in a series of books published by Café Royal.
This gallery shows exhibtion posters, catalogues, books and other examples of my work published from 1977 almost up to the present day.