#27, 2015

Martin Parr is a documentary photographer whose projects are a comically unflinching and anthropological study of the British class system. His visual style employs close ups of everyday life using saturated color to accentuate the realism of his photographs. Parr's seminal series The Last Resort, 1982-85, was a searing exploration of the working classes holidaying at a seaside resort. The exhibition was heralded as a turning point in British documentary photography in its style and use of color which until that point had been a primarily monochrome genre. He cited the influence of US photographers such as Joel Meyerowitz and William Eggleston both known for their ground-breaking use of color photography. In 1989 Parr released his next major exhibition, The Cost of Living, a study of an increasingly prosperous middle class under Thatcherism. Exploring mainly the southwest of England the work chronicled the lives of a growing social class participating in every day activities such as garden parties, shopping, and community events. For his next project Small WorldParr headed overseas to explore the subject of mass tourism, a deeply satirical critique on the banality of commercialized globetrotting. Martin Parr has held academic posts as professor of photography at the University of Art and Design in Helsinki and at the University of Wales. He also works extensively as a curator, collector and producer of television documentaries. (Artist website)