The art on this site is the work of Cliff Crawford and the copyright belongs to Cliff Crawford, the artist.
Original artwork and digital prints are available to purchase. A selection of prints is available to purchase on SaatchiArt

The skill of framing a photograph, selecting an instant in time that speaks of an ongoing narrative is the photographer’s expertise. It lies in the tradition of storytelling, presenting to the audience things they know, so they can see the stories within. Within a `digital reality’ of collaged images I move within a virtual world and select images as I would in the `real world’: what interests me, what catches my eye, what do I want to share?

A graveyard is a time capsule of complex interconnected biodiversity. It is untouched by agricultural and urban development the web of life thrives. Walk among the `not so dead’ and cross a flourishing biomass.

In A Deep Breath of Sky, I am exploring my relationship with the sky, its scale and complexity and its ability to reconnect us with our planet. Landscape is a story about the relationship between the earth and the sky; spending our time on the boundary between the two is a relationship of which we are subconsciously aware.

The metaphors we use describe this relationship - to feel good, elated we are `up’ floating skyward; to be practical, and solid, we have our `feet on the ground’. The land and the sky are so thoroughly woven into our psyche that they are part of the fabric of our lives, yet we barely see them.

During the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020, on an idyllic summer’s day, the bent Hawthorns of the South Downs spoke to me of the delight of living. These Hawthorn trees shaped by adversity, bent by the prevailing south-westerly winds and shaken by winter storms, survive. Their bent boughs and broken branches inform us of survival – the necessity to change and adapt.

Virtual Eye curates the objects with which we surround ourselves and create the incidental self-portraits that many share on social media. Using Twitter, the Virtual Eye project engaged with participants in a conversation about these objects to present intentional self-portraits. Virtual digital glass boxes celebrate these precious collections of personal objects so describing the wonderful, complex and intricate interactions that make a self-portrait.

Waveworn documents weathering and erosion on the Sussex coast through the medium of film and still photography, catalogued by location and date to create a complete and beautiful archive of change over the decades. The exhibition explores pressing issues of environmental instability, but also timeless human themes of change, instability and desire for the illusion of control.

Waveworn exhibited at Martyrs'Gallery, Lewes in March 2018

Can we visualise ourselves as built dwellings or structures? What kind would you be?  This is a different kind of self-portraiture; something different from the age-old image of the person.

If We Were Houses at 5th Base Gallery, London, July 2018 put different people’s visual ideas of themselves as built structures or places, into physical proximity. The intention is to see into the different kinds of baggage, cultural and personal, which we bring together when we make a new acquaintance, for example, or meet an old friend. The works will be grouped so as to make a 'neighbourhood' where every ‘self-portrait as a house’ – or other space – is as important as any other.  

In `Faceless Portraits' I use Blender (3D modelling software) to create a head with minimal facial details. I negotiate a balance between the digital 3D head and the 2D photographic `faceless portraits` wrapping the images around the form. The 3D form distorts the 2D image and the 2D images camouflage the form. The images wrapped around a head present aspects of personality missing from a traditional portrait, while camouflaging and influencing the perception of the image. I am questioning issues to do with reality and its representational narrative. What is the nature of narrative in the digital world?

Obliteration is inherent in the act of recording; this is true of both art and IT. A piece of work hides as much as it reveals.  Obliterated Crow presents a series of visual conversations between a crow, the air, and the media used.

My conversation with the crow began when she tilted her head, We made eye contact. I drew her. “Think that’s interesting?” she asked, as she skipped into the air and played with the wind.

You can buy a selection of prints by Cliff Crawford on Saatchi Art