Siân Davey (born 1964) is a British photographer. Her work focuses on her family, community and self, and is informed by her background in psychology.[1]
Davey has published two books, Looking for Alice (2015) and Martha (2018). In 2017 she had a solo exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, London[2] and was awarded the Royal Photographic Society's Hood Medal for Looking for Alice.[3]
Life and work
Davey was born in Brighton in 1964. She studied painting at Bath Academy of Fine Art (1985) and social policy at the University of Brighton (1990).[4] She was a psychotherapist for 15 years before taking up photography in 2014, which she studied at Plymouth University (MA 2014 and MFA 2016).[1][4][5]
Her photographic practice focuses on her family, community and self, and is informed by her background in psychology.[1][5] Her series Looking for Alice is a portrait of her daughter Alice who has Down syndrome.[6] One of the photographs from this series was selected for the 2014 Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize exhibition.[5][7] The series was published by Trolley Books in 2015. In 2016, Looking for Alice was shortlisted for Photobook of the Year in the Paris Photo–Aperture Foundation PhotoBook Awards.[8]
Davey's teenage daughter Martha assisted with the creation of Looking for Alice. This led to Davey's next series Martha that focuses on Martha and her teenage friends.[1][9][10] Two photographs from this series were selected for the 2016 Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize exhibition.[11]
In 2017, Davey exhibited her series Together as a pop-up exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, London. The work was made as a commission for the McCain Foods We Are Family series "which celebrates British families in all their shapes and sizes".[2][12] In creating the work, she travelled across Britain and photographed 31 families in 21 days.[13][14]
Publications
- Looking for Alice. London: Trolley, 2015. ISBN 978-1-907112-52-2. With a text by David Chandler.
- Martha. London: Trolley, 2018. With a foreword by Kate Bush.
Awards
- 2017: Hood Medal, Royal Photographic Society, Bath, for Looking for Alice[3]
- 2019: W. Eugene Smith Fellowship from the W. Eugene Smith Memorial Fund[15]
Solo exhibitions
- We Are Family (Davey's Together series), Print Shop Gallery, National Portrait Gallery, London, 2017[2][12]