Nick Waplington

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The artist and photographer Nick Waplington was born in Aden. His family traveled extensively during his childhood as his father worked as a scientist in nuclear industry. He studied art at Worthing Art College, Trent Polytechnic, and The Royal College in London.

He is noted for his conceptual approach to photography.

In 1985 Waplington went to live with his grandfather on the Broxtoe Estate in Nottingham where he began to photograph his immediate surroundings. Friends and neighbours of his family became his subject matter of choice. He continued with this work on and off for the next 15 years and from it came two books (Living Room and Weddings, Parties, Anything, both Aperture Foundation) and numerous exhibitions. (The book Weddings, Parties, Anything was called The Wedding for the American version only. )

His photographic books include You Love Life (Trolley Books 2005), The Indecisive Memento (Booth Clibborn Editions 1999), and Other Edens (Aperture 1994).

Other bodies of work include the much-copied Safety in Numbers (Booth Clibborn Editions 1997) and Truth or Consequences (Phaidon 2001), a portrait of the town of Truth or Consequences, New Mexico.

"Learn how to die the easy way", Waplington's contribution to the Venice Biennale in 2001, expresses a yearning for the artistic and commercial freedom that the web might yet expose and a celebration of the dislocated reason behind conventional thoughts and media. "If, as I suspect," says Waplington, "the Internet has broken the stranglehold of governments and large media corporations on mass communication, then we could be in for a very exciting period of development on a number of different levels. Would a breakdown of current modes of social, moral and political cohesion be too much for a man to ask for?"

The graphic novel "Terry Painter" was made in collaboration with Miguel Calderon in 2003. This and other projects with Calderon including "The Garden of Suburban Delights" have been exhibited in Europe and the US. He is currently represented in London and New York by Museum 52. In December 2007, the Whitechapel Art Gallery in London will show a new audio -visual work of found internet photos, entitled "Synethesia". Also to be published are a series of ten books of found imagery called "You Are Only What You See,", with a separate catalog of original photos by Waplington called 'Double Dactyl' to be published by Trolley Books.