Roy Mehta is a well-established London-based photographic artist with thirty years of professional experience working on personal and commercial projects. A hallmark of Mehta’s work is its versatility and application to a range of photographic genres while still maintaining a cohesive style in which intimacy is foregrounded.
Throughout this time he has developed a visual signature that emphasizes aesthetics and pictorial qualities that he expresses through the artful use of light and depth of field. Whether photographing people or objects, his creative approach engages with the intuitive and reflective to produce sensitive images that highlight detail and illuminate form. The final photographs are often enigmatic, gently hinting at and suggesting wider concerns, rather than foregrounding and describing them. In this way, Mehta is able to unite the formal and contextual elements in his work so that the various elements play off and enhance each other.
Much of his work centers around projects that encapsulate the complexity of identity and belonging.
His work is regularly exhibited in the UK and abroad, most recently as part of 'SIXTEEN', a group photography project about young people that toured extensively around the UK.
He is currently working on a major archive of work that he made c.1989 for a new solo exhibition in July 2020 as part of BRENT 2020 LONDON BOROUGH OF CULTURE.
He has exhibited work as part of the Brighton Photo Festival 2014 ('FUNGI' 2013-4), and as part of a group show in London organised by the contemporary photography publication, Uncertain States (2014). Previous bodies of work include 'COASTLINE' (1997-2003), a social document of life along the British coastline from Brighton to the Outer Hebrides (Tom Blau Gallery) and DISTANT RELATIONS (1995-96), which explored the fragile connections within extended families and the dialogue between two cultures, (exhibited at Impressions Gallery and The National Media Museum). He has also shown work at international photography festivals including Les Rencontres d’Arles and the Cape Town Festival of Photography. He has been regularly commissioned to produce work for advertising agencies and for a range of editorial clients. Many of his photographs have been commissioned and used for book covers that including a series of books by crime writer P.D. James as well as Salman Rushdie’s ‘Midnight’s Children’ and Richard Adams’ ‘Watership Down’.
Mehta’s interest in and approach to landscape and still life genres is evident in much of his personal work such as his on-going project The Garden, (2010), Memories within a Welsh House (2009) and his work with the European Garden Heritage Network.
Thus habitats provide readymade stages for often overlooked details in the natural world, or backdrops for carefully placed objects.
His work is in the permanent collections of the Library of Birmingham and The Harris Museum and Art Gallery, Preston.
'REVIVAL, LONDON 1989 - 1993'
Foreword by Dr Mark Sealy, director of Autograph, The Association of Black Photographers
Essay by Caryl Phillips, novelist, playwright and author
Published by Hoxton Mini Press. It is available on this link:
https://www.hoxtonminipress.com/products/revival
‘COASTLINE’ 2003 Published by Browns ISBN 0-9533730-6-1 (essays by David Chandler and Andrew Martin)
‘DIFFERENT’ Survey of a wide range of photographers 2001 Published by Phaidon ISBN 0 7148 4014 9 (essays by Stuart Hall produced by Mark Sealy)
‘DISTANT RELATIONS’ 1996 Published by Autograph ISBN 1-899282-20-3 (Essays by Mark Sealy and Oladele Ajiboye Bamgboye)
2022 Solo Exhibition opening in NW LONDON as part of BRENT 2020 LONDON BOROUGH OF CULTURE
2020 RK BURT GALLERY, LONDON and LONDON CITY BRIDGE ‘SIXTEEN’ Group Photography Exhibition
2019 TATE LIVERPOOL, Tate Exchange ‘SIXTEEN’ Group Photography Exhibition
2019 DERBY PHOTOGRAPHY FESTIVAL ‘Project Sixteen’ National Touring Group Exhibition
2016 ‘Portraits of Mumbai’ Uncertain States, Cass Gallery, London
2015 ‘Coaxial’ Group show London Photomonth
2014 ‘Fungi’ Brighton Photofestival
2013 Uncertain States, Cass Gallery, London
2012 Uncertain States, Cass Gallery London
2012 Photographers Gallery (on location) The World in London Group Show
2011 East Gallery, London ‘Uncertain States’ Group show
2010 Foremans Smokehouse Gallery, London ‘Between Two Truths’ Group Show
2004 Romfeia Gallery, Bulgaria (Plovdiv International Photography Festival) sponsored by The British Council
2003 Focal Point Gallery, Southend
2003 Tom Blau Gallery, London
2000 Ffotogallery, Cardiff ‘Just Another Day’, millennium commission group show 2000
1999 Cape Town Festival of Photography, South Africa (sponsored by The British Council)
1998 Rencontres d’Arles; British Photography Today
1998 National Museum of Film and Photography, Bradford (group exhibition ‘Shine’)
1998 Harris Museum and Art Gallery, Preston
1997 Keynes Gallery, University of Kent, Canterbury
1997 Willesden Green Gallery, London 1996 Impressions Gallery, York
1996 National Portrait Gallery, John Kobal Exhibition
1996 Cambridge Darkroom Gallery (book and touring show ‘Distant Relations’), Cambridge
1995 Derby Photography Festival, Derby
1994 Luton Museum and Art Gallery, Luton
1993 Photofusion Photography Gallery, London
1991 Watershed Media Centre, Bristol
2017 - ongoing. Associate Lecturer University for the Creative Arts, Rochester
2005 – 2019 Visiting Lecturer Brighton Met FDA and BA(Hons) Visual Arts Practice
2011 – 2014 Tutor Open College of the Arts
2003 – 2004 Visiting Lecturer UCA Farnham
1992 – 2007 Visiting Lecturer Harrow College
2012 ‘The World in London’ Olympics commission from the The Photographers Gallery, London
2006 Awarded commission from EGHN (European Garden Heritage Network) to produce work that re-interpreted the space within British and German public gardens.
2002 Awarded grant from Commissions East along with sponsorship from Photonica to publish ‘Coastline’ as a
hardback book.
2000 Awarded grant from East England Arts for work on the British coastline.
1997/1998 Public art commission from the Harris Museum in Preston to produce a body of work that reflects the diversity of communities living in Preston.
1995 Awarded a bursary from Cambridge Darkroom Gallery and Autograph to produce a personal body of work attempting to create figurative references to cultural identity. This resulted in a book and national touring exhibition (‘Distant Relations’)
1994 Eastern Arts Board Public Art Photography Commission to produce an exhibition that explored the landscape and people of Dunstable via a series of large-scale panoramic photographs
1993 Eastern Arts Board Public Art Photography Commission to produce an exhibition exploring concepts surrounding air travel
1992 Nominated for ‘Kodak European Panorama of Young Professional Photography’
