Barry Cawston, an award-winning photographer based in the west of England, has travelled extensively in Europe, the Americas, Africa and Asia. He has had a long held fascination with the people and cultural infusions of Russia. On multiple visits between 2014 and 2018, Cawston’s travels took him from the White Sea in the North to the Caucasus Mountains in the South, taking in both major urban and little known rural landscapes. This project culminated in September to November 2019 in a major exhibition at the Marble Palace of the Russian Museum in Saint Petersburg, together with the accompanying book “Russia: Far From Black and White”, published by Palace Editions, St. Petersburg also in 2019.

Drawing inspiration from Richard Misrach, Andreas Gursky and Alexander Rodchenko, Cawston’s vision often confounds our expectations of photography. His fascination with shape, pattern, colour and texture, when taken together can have an almost poetic feel to them, as if he has managed to combine reality and imagination.

The works in this series show, in his highly individual style, a personal response to the many fascinating people and sights that he encountered, both traditional and modern, expected and surprising, simple and complex.