"Sleeth's photography humorously and warmly and engages in a dialogue with the smaller habits, daily rituals, and preoccupations of contemporary life." —Bec Dean, author of "Pattern Recognition" in Matthew Sleeth: Ten Series/106 Photographs
Australian photographer Matthew Sleeth is a consummate observer, exploring the world around him with an acute and often humorous eye. Feet #5 (Tokyo) is from a series shot on the Tokyo subway. "They are images of reasonably random feet-usually whoever's I was sitting opposite," explains Sleeth. "They touch on themes such as consumerism (a great town for shoes) and the way men and women occupy public space differently. I'm sure this can be observed in many countries, but it seems emphasized in Japan: the men are sprawled over the seats with crotches thrust forward while the women tend to fold themselves into the smallest space possible."
This work appears in the artist's Aperture monograph Matthew Sleeth: Ten Series/106 Photographs, the first book of his work published in the United States. This latest project emphasizes how the sequencing of images is an essential part of creating photographic meaning, a conceit with precedents in the work of Ed Ruscha and others. Sleeth's playfulness, wry sensibility, and unorthodox visual style also recall practicing photographers like Lars Tunbjörk and Lee Friedlander.
With its range of typologies Ten Series/106 Photographs is varied and eclectic. Through casual exploration of disparate themes the artist offers a view of a contemporary world that is structured on somewhat arbitrary types, categories, and systems of classification, all the while making allusions to the role that photography plays.