Wyman Contemporary

STELLE DEL MARE

“The people arrive to you early seeking your silky salty comfort. Some are old men who trace the sign of the cross on their chests before submerging into you, some are looking to you to hide their inhibitions and sexual gamings, and some are drunks seeking solace from an all-nighter. You do not discriminate, but welcome all. I have spent years on the road attempting to tell the stories of others. In this time of COVID ‘lockdowns’ and seemingly unending up-endings of our lives, I have needed to slip into a more contemplative state; looking for a less literal and more visceral form of storytelling. This new series of ‘postcards’ from our Malta window and close by onto the Mediterranean sea, was born of the subconscious – a speechless full moon that nudges my conscious minds-eye to react. But whatever story there might be in the frame, is open to imagination, personal interpretation, and meditation.”
– Jason Florio

ARTIST BIO

Jason Florio (UK, USA), is a freelance photographer and filmmaker, based between London and the Gambia. He has produced images and documentaries for clients including The New York Times, Smithsonian, The New Yorker, National Geographic, Bloomberg,  MIT Technology Review, Amnesty International, and the World Bank. His work has been recognized with a number of awards, including The Magnum Photography Award 2017 and American Photography 2018 for his work on migration, and the Contemporary African Photography Prize 2021. He was the first recipient of the Aperture Foundation grant to produce Aperture’s first ever assigned story, ‘This is Libya’. His work is held in a number of public and private collections and has been presented in solo and joint exhibitions in the USA, Europe, and Asia. Florio completed the first circumnavigation of The Gambia by foot, co-leading (with his wife and producer Helen Jones-Florio) a 930km expedition, producing an award-winning series of portraits titled ‘Silafando’.Three years later he co-led the first recorded expedition of River Gambia from its source in Guinea-Conakry to the Atlantic Ocean, in The Gambia – creating a document of the communities that live along its 1130km course before a planned dam is constructed. For his photography-based expedition projects, he was made a Fellow of The Royal Geographical Society (UK).