Picture In an honest world (1)

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James K.Lowe

James K. Lowe, born in New Zealand in 1988 of Chinese parents, graduated from the Auckland University Elam School of Fine Art in 2009. Alongside his career as a designer and photographer, he is developing a personal artistic practice inspired by the personal documentary style of photographers such as Bill Henson (Australia) and Gregory Crewdson (USA) and the dreamlike visions of filmmaker David Lynch and video artist Bill Viola. Only 23, Lowe has already won numerous awards, including the Mount Eden Young Artists Award 2009.

As fifteen year-olds Lowe and his friends would drive around at night, find a place to park and talk for hours about the complexities of human relationships and the fragility of personal identity. They reflected on the “the strange gap between how we see ourselves and how others see us,” as he recently confessed to the photographer Anne Noble.
Lowe scripted and directed his series In An Honest World like a filmmaker. He scouted the location – a suburban setting that would become the backdrop to the drama that would take place before the camera. He asked friends to play the parts. He successfully established the mood he was trying to capture by suggesting narrative elements and actions to his characters, sometimes evoking tableaux vivants. The result – striking images of interaction, parting, transition, and confusion – is reminiscent of stills taken on the set of an art movie.

Preferring to work at night with large format cameras, Lowe is assisted by a team of friends and family. He avoids using flashes, preferring bulb lighting that he projects, like a painter, to selectively illuminate aspects of the scene and reveal his protagonists, making them stand out against the dark background.

Close to In An Honest World in their luminous intensity and evocative power, James K. Lowe’s other series are celebrated for their originality and their sophisticated vision of daily life among mixed-race youth growing up in suburban New Zealand.