Good night London
Jesús Madriñán
Santiago de Compostela
1984
“Good Night London” is a series of documentary portraits taken in several London night clubs. Placing my interest in such a hostile scenario, this series develops exploring how artificial environments work as a key element in teenager´s identity construction.
Studio conventional photography is then taken out of context, invading such a complex scenario. The calm and inspiration of a studio is here substituted by the hostile and noisy nightclub as a background, in which the characters will be casted at the very end of the night, just when the club is about to close.
Just like the many other elements of a night out, being exposed to the camera will offer portraiture and portrayed another twist of the game, in which to invent a way to project theirselves according to whatever narrative they may want to contract. Putting the individuals in front of a camera and lights, allows to capture the projection of whatever they want to show. “Good Night London” freezes real scenes, turning the noisy and the wild into an atmosphere of calm and serenity.
Jesus Madriñán is Bachelor of Fine Arts by the University of Barcelona and holds a masters degree in Photography for the Central Saint Martins School (London). He inspires himself in his own life experience and his surroundings to create his artwork that nourishes itself from the paradox that arouses when adopting foreseeable and meticulous techniques to handle inexorably spontaneous and hard to gasp situations.
He took part in highly regarded festivals and art fairs like PhotoEspaña, Paris Photo, ARCO, Unseen Amsterdam or the International Photography Awards in New York and he has exhibited individually at Menotrentuno Festival (Italy), We Are Arts Galery (London), Centro Terrente Ballester (Ferrol), Cultural Centre Kavlin de Punta del Este (Uruguay) and in the Spanish Cultural Centers in Mexico D.F and Montevideo.
