iPhone prints: by Joe Cornish

In the visual arts, practice and preparation are essential. In sculpture that means making a maquette. In painting, the process is characterised by drawing or sketching, whether with pencil, charcoal or watercolour. Eventually the process leads to a definitive piece, perhaps a bronze sculpture, or a major easel painting, incorporating many of the ideas explored in preparation.

Perhaps photographers have always practised too...by making photographs. The evidence for this is preserved in the rolls of film and contact sheets of famous photographers. We see many 'almost-but-not-quite-moments', but there is one where everything seems to come together. The definitive exposure's special status is then reinforced through the interpretation of the printing process, which becomes the finished work.

Over the last four years or so my sketching process has been done with a smart phone. These remarkable hand-held super computers make more sense than a digital compact because they are almost always with us. The screens are far larger and brighter than a digital compact. and finally, the phone manufacturers have revolutionised the technology, so that their native jpeg image output is more appealing than that of a conventional camera.

The exhibition aims to acknowledge the value and significance of the smartphone, at least as it relates to my creative process. We enjoy and appreciate sketches, drawings and cartoons of artists from history, so I feel it is only fair to ask, in the context of contemporary stills photography, has the phone now become the sketchpad and notebook of our time?

Edited Sun 1648hrs