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Colour Polaroid collaged portrait
About

quotes on my work from Instagram

Sort of gross but I can't stop lookin' - Oneinstaxaday

That's a mad one - cheezygrinon

I've never seen anything like this - rhphotosanctuary

I really like this but I don't know why - johnbehets

Juicy - suzannesteelart

Could you explain it please? - spikeymousephotography

And there's someone who buys these? - FranticFrancesco

I am an experimental photographer working with both analogue and digital mediums. Through my work I’m looking to find a balance between chance and control, and between; construction and destruction, signal and noise and ultimately, life and death. I embrace the accidents and errors as they not only remind us how vulnerable and delicate we are, they can often show us something new. It is at the point of breakdown that the medium begins to reveal itself. Through glitches and mistakes we get to see the base elements, the very construction of the material that creates those illusions of reality, the apparatus of photography itself.

For me, the click of the camera marks the beginning of the process. Often that initial image is just an inkling of an idea, a feeling that it may be interesting. This then needs further work to tease out, to chip away at, until I can get to the essence of what it is. This process is a time of experimentation and of trying to find the correct expression of that initial idea. I may have many versions, before choosing the image that best satisfies this.


As a child, much to the annoyance of my family, I was always taking things like record players and radios apart to see how they work. More often than not I would get an electric shock and often things wouldn't go back together quite right. However, this habit of pulling things apart has continued into my photography. Never happy with the preferred way of making images, I enjoy tinkering below the surface to see what lies beneath.

Punk was a big influence on me. Not just the music but the attitude, the DIY approach of just getting on with it, expressing yourself. I loved the stripped-down music, the freedom in just three chords. I find myself taking this approach to my images - stripping away the unnecessary, reaching out for a visceral response. I'm looking for the visual equivalent of that 2 minutes and 12 seconds of honed perfection that is the Ramones blasting out Blitzkreig Bop.

More recently, I have been attempting to find meaning and connection/reconnection with the natural world by returning to Suffolk, the place of my birth and making new work in the coastal areas. Rather than battling against my neurological condition, I’ve come to allow this to be a part of my work. My brain has difficulty processing proprioceptive information, so I cannot tell where my body is in space. My life is, quite literally, out of balance, which I think connects with a broader sense that we are living in a time when we are disconnected from nature.

exhibitions

Awards


Richard and Siobhán Coward Foundation Award 2024

Oppenheim-John Downes Memorial 2023

CuratorSpace Artist Bursary 2021


Muse Gallery Residency 2017


National Disability Arts Collection & Archive Research & Development Award 2017

Film


Reclaim the Streets - Super 8 film

Screened at: Portobello Film Festival 2019/

Soundstripes 5 2021

Talks

Mark Tamer in Conversation with IMA:

Are there too many images in the world? 2019

exhibitions
 

Solo Exhibition

2019


This Is It - Muse Gallery, Portobello Road, London, UK

Recent Exhibitions

2025      

         Breath + Blaze - Candid Arts, London

2024       

         Muse Gallery 20th Anniversary, Portobello Road
, London
 

2023

         Memories & Mementos II, WWW Gallery, London
 

2022


TASC at Hand 2022, Muse Gallery, Portobello Road
, London

Everybody’s Happy Nowadays, online

Shape Arts Annual Open, online 


Qube Open Art Competition,  Qube, Oswestry


 

2021


Hot Sheet, The Department Store, Brixton


No Frost at Night, Babylon Gallery, Ely


2020


Cluster Photography & Print, Ugly Duck’s warehouse, London Bridge

2019


Shape Arts Annual Open, Bow Arts, London


2018


London Ultra, Oxo Tower Barge House, London

The Other Art Fair, London


Muse Gallery Artist in Residence show - Portobello Road, London


Fringe Arts Bath Festival - live


2017


MA Photography Degree Show - LCC, Elephant and Castle
, London

Making It Real, - Ugly Duck, London


AIR Competition Finalist - Muse Gallery, Portobello Road
, London

Revolv Collective: Archives as Medium, live creation of zine, Four Corners Gallery, London


Interim Show, LCC, Elephant and Castle
, London

CTRL, Spitalfields Studios, Whitechapel, London

2018

Six month residency at The Muse Gallery, London, UK

2017 

Artist in residence working with Shape Arts at the Liberty Festival, London, UK

Hestercombe House, artist residential 

2015

Three day residency at the Shape Gallery, Westfield, Stratford 

2014/2015/2016


Artist in Residence, Malorees Infant School - Arts Week

residencies
 

education
 

London College of Communication, MA Photography, 2016 – 2017

London College of Printing. BA (HONS) Film and Video: 2:1,  1990 – 1993 

BTEC Design Communications: Distinction , 1987 – 1989

Lowestoft College, Graphics, photography, video, sound recording and theory.

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© by Mark Tamer 2022, in collaboration with The Artist Support Centre.

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