Marty Upham dons many hats but the one that fits best on his oversized head is that of photographer/ visual artist.

Having stumbled across a camera at the age of 21 by way of a fair but distatsteful bartering exchange, photography shook Martys world and permeated his bones to become a life-long passion and expressive outlet for all things weird and wonderful. Following the above mentioned shady and unspeakable transaction, Marty pointed his camera at the ripples and people around him. While making photos of the world as he saw it, Marty was discovering design and compositional techniques that he would later go on to learn in text books at photography college. He was also at the beginning of what would later become a rich personal history of his own life as well as the people around him. "Teddy the tourist!" A friend of a friend once dubbed the restless pest.

After many clicks of the shutter, the jump to a freshly squeezed DSLR camera and an impressionable overseas trip to China, Marty enrolled in Camera Craft 1 at the Australian Centre of Photography in 2008. This period of photographic training denotes the first time Marty would begin experimenting with sequencing through collating/arranging images side-by-side and experimenting with photo-montage. Armoured with a new understanding of manual camera controls and an already developing eye for off-beat image making, Marty began experimenting... in abstract photography that used in-house camera techniques and turned the world around him into a distorted and drunken landscape. He started ritualistic undertakings of making candid street photos with knowing and sometimes unknowing subjects that held a melancholic but still humanistic undertone. Marty would carry with him and feverishly flick through Phaidons "The Photo Book" bookmarking both renowned and obscure photographers that took his eye.

A new language was emerging for the now obsessively curious photographer and the next step was to cut a more formal qualification. In late 2010, Marty successfully applied and enrolled in the Certificate IV of Photo-Imaging at Sydney Tafe, Ultimo campus. Over the next two year period, Marty threw himself into his studies and graduated with distinction and credit levels. It was during this time of studies that Marty became drawn to images that held stories within them whether fact or fiction. Humouress street photography, long-form documentary, environmental portraiture, forensic photography and cinematic fine-art photography were all merging in a way that would fuel his practic and inform his own future self/style as a photographic artist.

Upon graduation from photography studies, Marty dabbled in various but intermitent bread and butter photography jobs. After a few months had passed, he sought out on his own accord, an unadvertised and unpaid position at the Australian National Maritime Museum documenting a large collection of Aboriginal artefacts known as the 'Ilma Collection'. Once a mfortnight for the next 18 months, Marty worked autonomously to photograph nearly 1000 precious and delicate totem masks. It was this drive and interest in art and cultural artefacts that led him to a full-time position working alonside the photography department at the State Library of New South Wales as collections digitiser.

Martys own ocular lens is now focussed in his own art practice of photo sequencing, the arrangement of photomedia in a chosen sequential order that presents a new brand of visual storytelling. Marty lives, works and studies in Sydney, Australia.

My art practice of photo-sequencing involves bringing together photographs to form a visual narrative.

The sequences take the viewer on a bizarre journey into new interior landscapes. Each sequence explores themes of isolation, hidden desires, deep repressed fears and absolute absurdity. Observers step into a void, a place of near empty scenes that show brief glympses of somewhat seminal figures. Mysterious passages pull you further into the strange. Obscure characters step into play, sometimes close enough to touch yet they remain unknowingly familiar whilst becoming steadily distant.

The sequencing of images is at the crux of my process. Sequences are given life from either one or two methods or a blending of the two. An individual sequence is sometimes entirely pre-visualised, where another sequence may be pieced together drawing upon an existing photographic archive. Ideas are embedded but never at the forefront alowing room for the visual narrative to swerve in new directions, thus paving the way for a multitude of ideas that deliver twisted, jigsaw arrangements with emotive spark.

Strap yourself in and lose your trousers as perspective falls into deep shadows and scenes overlap only to fold into themselves. Have you ever had the feeling of being lost in new places only to suddenly feel like you've visited them before? A microcosm of Déjà vu.



"Relish the goodtimes and mustard the obscure"

Marty Upham, Twenny-Twenny-Two

If you would like to get in touch with Marty, are interested in his artwork or would just like to say hello, you can do so in a couple of ways. Connect through Instagram or by filling in the form below. Forms are powered by Google and require a google account to submit any enquiries.