Robert Darch

“The Island is a great book that will remain an elegant work of somber sobriety first and an epitaph of the glory of England's participation in Europe. Highly Recommended.” Brad Feuerhelm, Nearest Truth

“How can photography negotiate a world where reality has become odder than fiction? Darch’s latest series, The Island, provides an answer. Landscapes and portraits together capture a country racked with tension. They are shot in black-and-white, and suffused with an almost palpable melancholy. There are mist-shrouded coves, murky hills and forlorn trees. The sea, emblematic of Britain’s decision to detach itself from its neighbours, is a persistent and forbidding presence.” The British Journal of Photography, Joe Lloyd

“‘I feel for this generation’: Welcome to Brexit island. Robert Darch talks us through his stark images of the UK that revisit claustrophobic small towns and reveal his fears for young peoples futures.” The Guardian

“Darch’s stark photographs offer a persuasive kind of narrative or meta-narrative about how and where we live, post-Brexit, post-covid, how we have chosen isolation and ignorance over possibility and partnership. It is a disturbing, anxious and thought-provoking book that contradicts the preposterous notion that we are a civilized, affluent and caring society. It is not, however, didactic or polemical, it is a gathering up of persuasive and visual evidence where ‘nothing of the present seem[s] familiar anymore’. We are all shipwrecked and abandoned now.” Rupert Loydell, International Times

“Robert Darch’s latest book, The Island is an absolute triumph, compelling and moving photography, beautifully designed and printed. For me, Rob is one of the most exciting and inspiring artists working in the UK today.” Iain Sarjeant, Another Place Press

“There’s no captions or academic text in the book but some fiction based on Robert’s past that reads like a short story, hinting at themes of separation, small town mentality and the desire to be away from where you grew up. There are lyrics from the track Waiting Room by Fugazi, who sing angrily about someone wanting to leave town, to break free, escape. It's probably fair to say Robert is a little f****d off. Turning the pages, The Island poetically captures that wet Sunday feeling that we’ve all experienced, sitting in your bedroom listening to Morrissey, heartbroken after your partner’s just dumped you, wondering how you will survive.” Peter Dench, Amateur Photographer

“As with pretty much any photo book that catches my attention, the initial lure has to be the work itself. In the case of The Island it was a masterclass of mood, a pitch perfect journey into a cinematic storyboard that hints at the romance of a time passed and the broken hearts, hopes and dreams of those washed up or stranded on the shores of "now". That it was Darch's response, a visual invocation if you will, to the dashed hopes and dreams of Britain's youth in the fallout of Brexit, only really became apparent upon reading his notes (secreted within the folds of the cover). However, upon first inspection the lyrical power of The Island suggested all manner of narratives and the scope and feel of moods and styles employed, rather than a comment on post Brexit Britain, instead swept me through an atmospheric journey evoking many of British cinema’s golden  memories, the muted monochrome describing some of the most beautiful, slightly forlorn characters and countryside to pass before any lens. From steam trains moving through Hitchcock’s landscape of The 39 Steps, through the atmospheric mists of Lean’s Great Expectations and of course on to the portraits.” Robin Titchener

PRESS

The Guardian . Politiken . The British Journal of Photography . Nearest Truth . Black + White Photography Magazine . Amateur Photographer . Nowhere Diary . Palm . International Times . Fisheye Magazine . Fotoroom . L’oeil de la Photographie . Zero Nine Magazine . On Landscape .

“Paradise lost: nature photos that mourn a lost youth. His beautiful rural landscapes could be escapism…or something more sinister.” The Guardian

“There is a sense of foreboding in Vale, single light bulbs hang from a tungsten tinged ceiling in a room covered with paper bought from a ration book, framed pictures of long deceased family members vying with crucifixes for viewers’ attention. That’s how the book ends, a flash of spook light gleaming in the oval mirror, Darch escaping this Devon Hill House by the skin of his West Country teeth.” Source, Colin Pantall

“Sensitive portraits and beautiful understated landscapes with a masterful treatment of light. He conjures up a fictional, slightly off kilter, even ominous depiction of rural England. I highly recommend it.” Paul Seawright OBE

“The book perfectly depicts the “lost time” that chronic illness brings you, when it removes you from the life you once knew.” Clare Richardson

“A fabulous self-published photobook of beautiful, evocative work. Strongly recommend you pick up a copy before it's out of print.” David Drake, Ffotogallery

“Vale is the latest photobook by the artist, which he has self-published. Images of old trees, verdant valleys and hot summer hazes denote an archetypal British countryside and typify the narrative. Alongside this, disconcerting elements peek from behind; something can be felt amongst the trees. The beauty of nature faces a ghostlike, fractured, and melancholic stillness. There is more at play under the surface of this pastoral landscape.” The British Journal of Photography, Isaac Huxtable

Robert Darch’s latest work, Vale, presents a distinctly unnerving and disorientating experience. The expectation of a rural idyll is created from the outset; an archetypal English valley landscape pulled from a perfect composite memory. But this beauty is quickly undercut, disturbed by a cast of characters who seem unwilling or unable to play along with this bucolic vision. Darch has created a space where something else, below surface appearances, is happening. In the liminal space between fiction, narrative and reality, the intentions and outcomes of Vale have become intractably intertwined. However, we must respect the fictional boundaries of this place as if they were reality, even as this world itself begins to fall apart. Indeed, we might conclude that in our current situation within 2020, a sense of a loss of time is what might be driving our own search for the promise of truth that nostalgia seems to offer. But even as we are in pursuit of that promise, we may need to discard the veracity apparently offered by photography, recognising and ultimately embracing Vale as the manifestation of a lost time, with all the weight that such a loss implies. Dan Cox, V&A, excerpt from his Essay, The Vale of Despond

PRESS

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“The Moor is the first book of the emerging photographer Robert Darch. The MP Foundation had the privilege to launch this book. We very much enjoy encouraging and promoting new talent and look forward to many more publications.” Martin Parr CBE

“Robert has produced a welcome addition to the canon of British photobooks. His first publication, The Moor, is a darkly poetic study of the unique landscape of Dartmoor which plays with fiction and reality. A must-have!” Simon Roberts

“Robert Darch's pictures evoke the still quiet peace of The Moor in a way the viewer can almost touch, smell and feel the atmosphere. As with all his work the photographs create a sense of the here and now coupled with a distinct nostalgia for the past - Thomas Hardy's Wessex emanating from within each image. Darch is a quiet unassuming photographer whose work has immense depth and intensity, his passion for the moor is clearly visible in each of his pictures in a way few capture consistently and continually.” Tracy Marshall

“The Moor takes place in Dartmoor, or is it only in our dreams? The landscape looks real as we wander in the lone and bare land or venture in the woods, but there is something strange happening here. The land attracts us like in a heavy sleep, an eerie and mysterious one. It is a powerful attraction one has to submit to, leaving all resistance. Is it a frightening vision of the future? Has there been a war and are these the only living people? Robert Darch leaves us with more questions than answers, intrigued and charmed by the beautiful and natural light, by the strange dream, the fragile and delicate figures in the landscape. One may think of the disquieting and oppressive space of Geert Goiris’ The Prophet, the uncertainty of a dystopian future, the end of our known world. But here the threat and mystery arises from the land and the light itself, beautifully rendered by Robert Darch in the nice edition of Another Place Press. Can we escape from the secret power of the Moor? And do we really want to?” Gabriela Cendoya

“The notion of a dystopian society has long provided inspiration for writers, filmmakers and artists. There was of course, George Orwell’s media and information controlled-world in 1984, Anthony Burgess’ satirical and dark exploration of ultra-violent youth culture in A Clockwork Orange, and Masamune Shirow’s mind hacking cyborg-filled Japan in A Ghost in the Shell. The world conjured up in photographer Robert Darch’s upcoming book, The Moor, however, feels much closer to home – and far more imminent.” It’s Nice That, Ruby Boddington

“The series is dark, proposing a future dystopia through images of the present. Darch’s lens shifts from vertiginous, dark forest, to open grass plains, makeshift dwellings and figures illuminated and distorted by light. The ferocity of nature is present too, its wildness unbound as Darch frames the environment and society on the point of collapse.” Rosie Flanagan, IGNANT

“Filled with an other worldly emotion” Colin Pantall

“A beautifully photographed apocalyptic vision that feels alarmingly prescient in these dark times.” Murray Ballard

“A dystopian vision of Dartmoor unfolds in Robert Darch’s haunting photographs. The Moor, a sci-fi visual narrative that shows the landscape as a dystopia in the near future. Dark, tense and perilous, Dartmoor is turned into a dramatic stage setting, primal and symbolic. As an adult, Darch found himself living in the area, moving closer and closer to the moor, drawn there as if by some uncanny force.” Wallpaper Magazine, Charlotte Jansen

The book left me with an eerie feeling; I felt the drawing power of inaudible whispers possibly luring the characters into the wilderness of the Moor, truths are tested, madness and hallucinations ensue, and a bit of ghost story is thrown in for good measure. Whether real or imagined, ultimately Darch created a palpable vision: The Moor depicts dark reflections of real world landscapes, mythology, and memories to create compelling storytelling.” Cary Benbow

 PRESS

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