Searching Beneath The Silence - New Book Dummy

I have always been drawn towards churches. There is something so uniquely special about pusing (sometimes forcing!) open a huge ancient wooden door to enter what can feel like a completely different realm to the one you have previously been in.

So many are still left open for passers by to enter for a moment of contemplation, in search of quiet, solitude, solidarity or a sense of something more. Each is unique, often adorned with magnificent architectural details, sculptures and fine artefacts in place, all pointing towards the presence of something greater. Yet amidst their differences, they each house an atmosphere of timelessness, a continuity. Each building, for hundreds of years, has welcomed visitors, some regularly, some only once, and each footstep on stone, turn of a door handle, each brush along the pews has left its mark. The church itself left worn, evidence of the presence of friends and strangers. 

Historically, the English parish church has been a crucial focal point for small communities across the country. As society embraces the age of individualism and the church-going population ages and declines, the necessity for these collective religious spaces has been stripped away in the space of a single generation. Many of these beautiful buildings are falling into disrepair, being sold off to private developers and stripped of their intended purpose. It feels only right to take the opportunity to document these spaces whilst we still can.

Through placing myself within these spaces, I am enabling myself to explore, largely subconsciously, asking questions of my religious socialisation, experiences of loss and my emotional response to the idea of something greater than our collective selves. My search is for the connection between not only my interior world and the exterior world before me, but also the spiritual realm for which these buildings were created to inhabit.  

As I seek solace in these places, I take comfort knowing that countless others have done so before me. I wait for clarity, for answers that may never come, with questions that I don’t know how to ask but through making pictures.

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Now that the kids are back to school I’ve had some time in the studio and have put together this book dummy. Previously the work has incorporated a broader selection of subject matters, but I wanted to experiment with presenting just the images made within the church spaces, taken all across the UK, and in doing so allowing me to present images which haven’t previously been included in the project’s various prior presentations.

• Covers - Triple card covers with Matte-printed Tip In - G.F. Smith Colourplan Cobalt 350gsm Stucco Hammered & Harvest 350gsm

• Paper -  Munken Print Cream 70gsm

• Spine - Tan Leatherette

• Binding - Hand-glued French/Japanese Fold

• Printed at Sarsen Press, Winchester

• Hand bound at Southern Bookcrafts

If you’d like to see a PDF of the whole dummy, just drop me a message.

'The Child Is The Father of the Man' - Handmade Photobook Dummy

'The Child Is The Father of the Man' originates from the poem "My Heart Leaps Up" by William Wordsworth, an expression of hope that he might retain the joys of youth. 

I made this series of photographs in the year or so after moving back to my hometown of Winchester after over 15 years away, chronicling the spaces in which I spent my childhood, in which I now invite my own children. The images consider the idea that we are all a product of the habits and behaviours that we establish in our youth and through various 'chapters', explores the notions of origin, permanence, fatherhood and returning.

I constructed the book at the end of last year at the culmination of my introductory course in bookbinding and was so pleased to be able to develop the project from start to finish, resulting in this one off dummy.

• Covers - Casebound wrapped in Cream Linen with Silk-printed Tip In

• Paper -  Munken Print Cream 70gsm

• End Papers - G.F. Smith Colourplan Harvest 350gsm Stucco Hammered

• Binding - Hand-glued French Fold

• Printed at Sarsen Press, Winchester

• Hand bound (by me!) at Southern Bookcrafts

You can see the full selection of spreads from the book on my website here.

The Phone of The Wind

The Phone of The Wind

After the loss of my sister back in 2018 I spent many many hours developing ideas for a series of art installations with the intention of inviting the viewer into a multi sensory experience of the emotional rollercoaster of grief. Many of my ideas were complicated, layered and required an awful lot of development, but one really stood out to me. My intention was to create a space in which we could talk to those who are no longer here, designed as a safe and sound proof environment, almost like a confessional booth, but as the only person in the room, you would have the chance to verbalise, converse, listen and wait. Perhaps participants would believe that they could be heard by those who have departed this life, perhaps it was more about the letting go, the catharsis of opening one’s mouth and verbalising all that felt trapped inside. It was a space that one would be able to ask questions and consider what the answer might be.

Well. Like all the best ideas, it’s already been done, and achieved in it’s beauty and simplicity in Japan by Itaru Sasaki, a man who utilised an old phone box to invite people to speak to those they had lost after the 2011 earthquake. 

“People who are grieving can close their hearts and shut themselves off from the world – not seeing anyone or talking to anyone, not leaving the house. They end up in a state where they lose all motivation to do anything,” Sasaki says. “But by opening the door just a little, in doing something as small as going to visit the Phone of the Wind, they connect with the impetus to move from doing nothing to doing something to recover from grief.”

His original ‘Wind Phone’ has welcomed over 50,000 visitors and pilgrims, and has been duplicated with over 350 now existing all over the world. 

“Compared to the eternity after death, life is unquestionably brief. It is therefore of great significance that we not only maintain a kizuna – a bond with others – while we are alive, but also an enduring connection even after we die.”

More often than not, discovering that someone has beaten you to what you initially thought was a truly unique idea can be disheartening, but in the this case, Sasaki’s version feels so perfect it cannot be improved upon. It also saves me having to go to all the effort of making my version!

You can read the recent feature in the newly presented Observer here

This article is taken from my May Mailout which also features some of my latest news and cultural highlights.

To receive it directly to your inbox each month, sign up here.

In Response to Silence

In Response to Silence

Over the Easter break I had the chance to catch up on some reading and was very glad to have found Pew by Catherine Lacey in a second hand bookshop a week or so beforehand. 

The narrative invites us into the world of ‘Pew’, so named because they are found sleeping within a church and then invited into the community to be cared for. However, Pew isn’t able to remember anything about her life, they can’t even confirm their name or gender and therefore chooses to remain silent to the majority of people that she is introduced to. Pew’s silence is hugely unnerving for the community, they have no means to categorise or placing them within their usual confines and their relationships become increasingly strained. 

To me it was apparent that Pew’s silence was acting as a mirror, reflecting the characters back to themselves. Without a response, characters felt the the need to keep justifying their stance, decisions or life story to Pew, who’s silence to them felt like a rudeness, a stoic act of defiance, but regardless of the reason for the silence it meant they had to listen to themselves, to their own constructions of their narrative realities. 

It was then up to the various characters to decide whether they held firm in what was being reflected back to them by continuing to justify themselves, or allowed the presence of Pew to instigate some questioning and self-reflection (although this wasn’t an avenue which was explored explicitly within the book). 

It made me wonder who and what elements of my life reflect myself back to me, my family, the children, the dog (already!), the passing of the seasons, my artwork, God, and how I respond to those moments in which I can hear myself clearly or have a trait revealed that I wish was different. Sometimes it prompts an opportunity for an apology, sometimes it’s a moment to learn and apply myself differently next time, or perhaps it’s a question which I ask of myself and others. 

As an artist, I have seasons of clear introspection which then find my way into how I make, share and present my work. Often I will begin by creating instinctively, then through observation I’ll begin to load the work with the narrative that it is revealing to me, and then I strip it back in order to present enough to the audience without them being spoon fed, but which frames my intentions. 

Perhaps this is all an exercise in listening, an invitation to say less and instead receive the world around us.

This article is taken from my April Mailout which also features some of my latest news and cultural highlights.

To receive it directly to your inbox each month, sign up here.

Searching Beneath The Silence - Audio Narrative Piece

A companion piece to the photographic series ‘Searching Beneath The Silence’ - a search for solace and beauty through the exploration of sacred and natural spaces.

‘It is only in the silence that you can hear God’s voice. Maybe.’ - Jon Fosse

Written & Produced by Simon Bray

Recorded at St. James’s Church, Hunton and St. Cross Chapel, Winchester.

Best experienced with headphones!

Frankenstein for The Nutshell

I recently had the privilege of taking a series of promotional photos for the recent production of Frankenstein at The Nutshell.

Working with actors is always such a rewarding endeavour, building a rapport and shared energy to find ways to represent the character’s presence.

Nobody has limitlessness

“…he's a man who disappoints himself with his need of firm ground. He needs stability inside and out, and to simplify his life lest it overwhelm him. There are people like him (so he says) who complicate their inner lives by feeling too much all at once, by living in knots, and who therefore need outer things to be simple. A house, a field, some sheep for example. And there are those who manage somehow, by some miracle of being, to simplify their inner lives so that outer things can be ambitious and limitless. Those people can swap out a house for a spaceship, a field for a universe. And though he'd give his leg to be the latter, it's not the kind of thing you can trade a leg for, in any case who'd want his leg if they already had limitlessness? Nobody has limitlessness, she'd said.”

Taken from 'Orbital' by Samantha Harvey

I enjoyed reading Orbital so much that I purchased it for multiple people at Christmas. A short novel exploring life on the International Space Station, the awe at which it’s inhabitants view the world and the regret they feel over leaving their domestic lives behind. Ascending and descending, revolutions and rotations, and time to reflect. 

Sometimes we can look at others and ask ourselves how they have managed to find so much success, momentum, money or power. How have they pushed beyond the limitations that we all feel to realise a dream or overcome all the obstacles to complete what they set out to do.

Initially, we need to escape the sense of comparison, we are meant to be our own selves and that alone. We arrive in this world on different terms, with different platforms, expectations and priorities, there is not sense in comparing.

Secondly, if you are jealous of someone else's situation, what is that telling you about your situation? It doesn't mean theirs is objectively better, it just seems that way based on how you are valuing what they have. Ask yourself whether you have taken time to value what you have?  Any frustration you may still feel can be pointed towards something life giving that will energise not only you but the world around you.

Also, sometimes we all need simplicity and the circumstances we find ourselves in require us to seek restoration. Sometimes we feel like we can take on the world, but in order to take on the world we need to engage with the world. To open up a conversation with it and its inhabitants, to ask questions, search for answers, find the gems of beauty and meaning and be open to the synchronous (coincidental?) happenings in life which only seem to occur if we are willing to knock on its doors. For some of us, taking on the world will take us out of this world, to float in space only to wish we could return.

This article is taken from my March Mailout which also features some of my latest news and cultural highlights.

To receive it directly to your inbox each month, sign up here.

Talk - Artists at The Arc - 1st April

As well as presenting the exhibition, I've also been invited to speak about my work at The Arc on Tuesday 1st April. This will be a fairly informal look at how I approached making the work within the exhibition, how I used different mediums to explore single ideas and allow them to evolve. 

The event is free, but booking is required. Find out more here: Simon Bray - Artists at The Arc

Exhibition - Searching Beneath The Silence - The Arc, Winchester

I'm absolutely delighted to be exhibiting a series of photographs and artworks in my hometown this spring. This body of work began back in 2019 and has taken on an incredible amount of iterations, edits and book dummies since then. That's not to say that this version feels at all 'complete', but I hope is a testament to it's creation through a period of births, deaths, lockdowns and relocating.

None of this work has previously been exhibited, in fact it's almost 10 years since I showed any landscape work. A set of new images will sit alongside others which have already appeared in the handmade artist book I made last year.

I'm also very glad to be including a small selection made in Winchester over ten years ago from my 30th December project, in which I make photographs on the anniversary of my father's passing. There will also be a couple of non-photographic inclusions, namely a sculpture and audio piece.

Find out more about the exhibition here: Searching Beneath The Silence at The Arc

You are very welcome to attend the Private View:  Thursday 3rd April - 18:30 - 20:00

Register you attendance here

Photography Workshops at The Colour Factory, Winchester

Throughout 2025 I’m running a series of photography workshops with the wonderful team at The Colour Factory in Winchester.

Spread across the four seasons, each session will explore a different theme designed to encourage and enhance how you see and capture the world with your camera.

For more details and to book on, visit my online shop here: Photography Workshops at The Colour Factory

If you have any questions, please email: simonj.bray@gmail.com

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Falling, Fallen, Fell EP

Falling, Fallen, Fell EP 

Stream / Bandcamp

Everything we are is a vase.

Sometimes our vase gets knocked off the table.

We might have the fortune of anticipating the impact,
allowing us to try and soften the blow,
but we cannot stop it from falling.

On occasion though, the impact is so quick and forceful that our vase is shattered
into so many fragments that piecing it together feels impossible. 

We can spend years picking up pieces that we think will fit,
only to find they don't sit together.
The process is painful,
but deep down we cling to the understanding that with each step
we learn more about ourselves and the world around us.

The stress of finding our way through our pile of fragments
can manifest itself in many different ways. 
As we grow to understand the grief we have for our losses
and the tension we carry for the future, 
we can choose to find spaces in which we can slow our pace, 
listen to our bodies,
breathe deeper
and rest,
even if just for a few minutes.

Stream / Bandcamp (includes option of limited edition print)

Falling, Fallen, Fell  EP - A3 Artwork Print

I'm also offering a limited edition print of the EP cover photograph, which is for sale now on my Bandcamp page. I took the photograph in a recording studio a few years ago and as it never quite fitted into other projects, it's been sat in a folder on my desktop of images that I really like but aren't sure what to do with! For me the image is a conversation between form and fragility, something that I aim to explore within my music. 

The print features the following text, which I have adapted from David Byrne’s ‘How Music Works’:

Music is a cosmic telegraph that links us to a world beyond ourselves, drawing us towards that which science can’t explain, the magical and unexplainable parts of the world.

It invites us into an enchantment with the unspoken things that affect us, emanating from the mystery. An offering of transcendence.

• Edition of 10

• Printed on 250gsm Unicorn White Art Paper

• Photograph taken by Simon Bray

Each order comes with a digital version of the EP. Find out more and purchase here.

New track 'Falling, Fallen, Fell' on BBC Solent

The lovely guys at BBC Solent were kind enough to play a track from my new EP, ‘Falling, Fallen, Fell’, which I’ll tell you all about in the new year.

It’s the final track of the show and if I do say so myself, a lovely way to round off a wonderful collection of music from artists from across the south coast.

Check it out at 1:55 on BBC Sounds 

Bookbinding

Over the past few months I’ve been undertaking a course in bookbinding, learning from the delightful John Green at Southern Bookcrafts in Winchester, who has led me through the process of making 8 small books from scratch, each with different bindings and finishes. It’s been a real pleasure to learn a new skill and to create something tangible using a set of skills which have such a wonderful heritage. I even made a box to put them all in. If it’s of interest, they run monthly taster days, and the introductory course is very reasonably priced. I’ve begun to apply what I’ve learnt to my own work, creating a couple of book dummies, some of which I’ll share with you at a later date.

What do we mean by freedom?

I was recently struck by a section of Vincent Deary’s ‘How We Are’, part of a trilogy of books exploring the human state, which was recently followed by ‘How We Break’ and will conclude with ‘How We Mend’. 

In it, he explores the meaning of ‘freedom’ in a social sense, and in reading it I couldn’t help but equate his words to the journey of creativity, one in which we perceive that we want total freedom in order to create whatever we want, when in reality we are likely to far more fruitful when creating within a set of clear restraints. The common adage of a writer struggling with a blank page or an artist not knowing how to make the first mark on a clear canvas is something that all of us might struggle with in various forms of life. Decisions can be so much easier when we are given a brief or invited into an existing space, group or routine, we can find our way to fit in and flourish within those perceived parameters. Sometimes we may find ourselves in a space we feel we don’t suit, so we continue searching until we find a space in which we can operate happily within. We lean on our socialisation to understand how to be in each scenario that we find ourselves, whether to assert our individuality or to blend in. 

Here’s the excerpt from Vincent…

“We want to abdicate our wills in leisure, we want to be temporary Taoists. The Taoists were early Chinese philosophers for whom the ideal way of life was wu wei, or non-action. Not in the sense of doing nothing, but rather in the sense that a plant grows towards the sun. The plant doesn't have to consider and try, it just naturally does the right thing. We might yearn for this effortless and implicit knowing of the right action in day-to-day life, but we don't expect it. On holiday we do. By spending money, by employing people and placing ourselves in their pre-packaged routines, we expect a minimum of fuss and bother.”

“A walk in the park is a clever synonym for ease. Move a little on and up from leisure, away from the fun, and the rules don't change so much, only the feelings of the participants. It's obvious with christenings, weddings and funerals, the sacraments and markers of birth and death. We have, collectively, beaten paths, worn ruts to guide and channel the actions, feelings and thoughts of these occasions. There are roles for the characters, places for them to be, actions for them to perform. Ritual contains things, allows life to happen. This is no less true as you walk around the supermarket or when you visit the cinema or restaurant or when you sit down to work, when you assume your office, your place in society, the thing that you do to get the money. Our living occurs within a pre-established and overarching order, and our relationship to our place within that order is ambivalent.”

“There is an old story, one we retell a lot, where the socio-symbolic matrix, the system in which we are immersed, is the source of oppression and the hero's defining characteristics are rebellion and subversion. Usually, in this story, the system is overthrown, transformed or escaped. Occasionally, Big Brother-like, it wins. In this light we might see revolution as a refusal to walk the desire lines of posterity, as an attempt to forge and walk new ones. The rebellious spirit is pioneering, ground-breaking, romantic. Who wants to be a cog? But we are as complicit as we are coerced. Apart from the most basic mass behaviour - mob rule - the coordination of collective human beings requires a set of prescribed routines, moves and roles, props and scripts. In all this prescription, oppression may be there, but there is also a massive amount of freedom: the freedom from having to think again and reinvent, and the freedom to be with one another in complex and difficult states. In our collection of props and practices lie the possibilities of liberation and leisure, the machinery for communication and communion.”

I believe that both art and religion are significant social vehicles for communication and communion. They can both be highly prescriptive, but when presented and approached with a sensitive delivery, they each invite the individual to a space in which we understand how to be, yet can bring ourselves in order to listen, receive and maybe experience that sense of liberation.

In terms of approaching that blank page, historically I have fallen into a bit of a trap of defining the end of a project too soon, sometimes before I’ve even begun. The starter-finisher in me wants to know that the task is manageable and will at some point come to a defined and deliverable end. However, I’ve recently tried to devise projects that are completely out of my control by handing over the next steps to collaborators, so that I have very little say over how they develop. However, I still need to give myself some element of framework to operate within. The world expects consistency of artists, we want to see someone create something beautiful and replicate it numerous times. We understand what they’re making and we can receive it happily. This is something I’m not particularly good at delivering, largely because I believe a project needs to be explored on its own merits, not squeezed into one particular way of working. Perhaps I just have found my true medium yet. 

As an artist, you have to be proactive, more often than not you cannot wait for the dream commission or job to come to you, you have to create it for yourself. Summoning something from nothing. We dream that we too can exist as if we are a plant that grows towards the sun, to feel we are naturally existing within ourselves and doing the right thing, making progress, achieving our life’s aims and sharing our beauty with the world.

I wonder if a seed knows what its goal is before it starts to grow? Or whether it does just grow towards the sun, knowing that that is enough.

This article is taken from my December Mailout which also features some of my latest news and cultural highlights.

To receive it directly to your inbox each month, sign up here.

Searching Beneath The Silence - Audio Piece

I’ve made a recording as a compatriot to the recent release of Searching Beneath The Silence.

It was recorded in two local churches and features my own voice reading the essay which features in Volume 001 of the book.

You can listen on Soundcloud here.

Searching Beneath The Silence - Print Edition

Searching Beneath The Silence - Print Edition

12”x8” Hahnemuhle PhotoRag 308gsm & a copy of Searching Beneath The Silence

Choose from 6 images below - Only one of each available

Purchase here

Book Design - 'waco' by Jack Garland

I had the great pleasure of working with my friend Jack to design his first photobook, ‘waco’, which was recently launched at a series of events in Berlin and Paris. The book carries a dark weight, and asks far more questions than it answers with Jack’s images carrying a troubling sense of youthful uncertainty. Please support Jack by purchasing a copy!

Photography Workshops at Spudworks in The New Forest

I’m running a series of workshops at Spudworks gallery in The New Forest next spring. If you’d like to join us for a 6 week course learning about photography with a group of wonderful people, then you can find out more and sign up here: Photography Workshops at Spudworks Gallery

Is being an artist a selfish act or does it help others?

Like all the best questions, there isn’t an objective answer, but it’s something I have been asking myself recently, prompted by a wonderful episode of Lights Out on BBC Sounds. My desire to create, my need to explore ideas, to find solutions to creative problems and share what I make with the world can often feel like it’s entirely for me. There’s a fine balance to be had in terms of making work for one’s self or making it for an audience. I would suggest that at the point of making work for an audience, you have lost the essence of what you truly want to create, it’s up to each artist to distil their influences, processes and skills into something that satisfies their own creative desires.

This doesn’t always render itself as a commercially viable outcome, in fact it’s unlikely to. The idea that we live in a meritocratic world, particularly when it comes to art, in which the ‘best’ work rises to the top is something that the vast majority of artist’s can't afford to live by. So commercially, it can be very hard to justify, but just because it might not be a profit making practice, it doesn’t mean that the work isn’t helping others. Just through its existence a piece of art is a demonstration that we each have a unique vision of the world, something to say or share which may portray an idea or thought which someone else has struggled to know how to say or present through their own means, almost like a question that they didn’t quite know how to ask. There is solace in knowing that someone else wants to ask the same questions as you. That is a beautiful and unifying thing. 

So I would suggest that art is both selfish and helpful, gratifying for the artist in its process of creation, but then up to them to find an audience that will connect and engage with the world to allow it to be helpful. To that end, there seem to be very few straight or quick paths, patience and persistence are certainly required, but in continuing the process of making, the vision sharpens, the voice becomes clearer and both the artist and the audience have a great sense of the questions that the work may be asking of us, even if we have to accept that we may not know the answers.

This article is taken from my November Mailout which also features some of my latest news and cultural highlights.

To receive it directly to your inbox each month, sign up here.

Searching Beneath The Silence - Artist Book

Searching Beneath The Silence - Artist Book

A contemplation on loss, exploring the potential of the eternal through the beauty and fragility of spiritual and natural spaces.

"It is only in the silence that you can hear God’s voice. Maybe."  - Jon Fosse

​​“There is no standing still, no heavenly moment outside of time to love 

and mourn and languish before history starts up again.”  - Brian Dillon

• Three Volumes - Edition of 50

• 001 - 48 pages / 002 - 44 pages / 003 - 24 pages

• A5 Staple Bound - Printed on Palamino Grain 120gsm by Print.Work

• Cased within doubled greyboard covers, bound with fabric tape and oversized elastic band

• A7 Cover Tip-In Print - Printed on Silk 300gsm by Printed.com

• Includes two exclusive A6 prints - Printed on G.F. Smith Gmund Cotton 300gsm 

Pre-Order Book Here

Searching Beneath The Silence - Print Edition

12”x8” Hahnemuhle PhotoRag 308gsm

Choose from 6 images below

Pre-Order Print Edition