When I graduated from King's College London in 2015 with a degree in History and War Studies, I couldn't help but feel that my artistic pallet was rather dry, despite three indulgent years spent in a city brimming with art and culture. I've always been a creative individual; and since I flourished my last pencil in my final art exam I felt I had a few loose ends I wanted to tie to satiate my hunger. Perhaps, like a lot of creatives, I communicate better in pictures rather than words.

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This website is both a portfolio and a stepping stone towards further creative horizons. The work here focuses mainly on my interest in realism in art. Whilst I work mainly in a black and white medium, which harkens back to chiaroscuro (I find colour too limiting), my work does not simply imitate reality. Instead, I look to tell a story in my pictures, by demonstrating personal emotion through my study of photographs. Rather than blindly drawing the subjects in my pieces, I look to focus on the nature of the photos themselves, conveying the blemishes and stains to give the image another meaning entirely. The drawings almost take on an ethereal quality by having these multiple narratives working together simultaneously. I believe this works as a different form of photorealism, because the final result is always unique, and never something we could appreciate contemporaneously with our own eyes.

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- Ben Edmonds, 2017

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