Dan Morgan
Dan Morgan (@DanMorganFfoto) is a Photographic Artist and the Founder of Phonebooks in the Attic Gallery, based in Swansea, Wales.
Dan’s work surrounds the ideology of the uncanny and unreal, taking seemingly everyday images, and blurring the lines of reality through surrealism and manipulation. Utilising the skillset that he showcased through earning his Master’s degree in Photographic Art Practice. His working themes surround the idea of falsified truths and into the theory behind anti-conformity, going against society and not dwelling on social constructs and propaganda.
Dan got into Photography following the passing of his late-father Adrian Morgan, a wedding and family portrait Photographer from Neath, finding the medium to serve as a way of connecting with his Dad, Dan was inspired to delve deeper into the artistic side of the practice and began his studies in Swansea College of Art, where coincidentally, his late-grandfather Gareth Morgan had also attended exactly 50 years before, studying Fine Art and Painting.
The works that Dan created while in University were heavily influenced by Nomads and Drifters like Jack Kerouac and Christopher McCandless. The title of Dan’s final project for University ‘I is just Somebody Else, Some Stranger.’ comes from a Jack Kerouac quote ‘I wasn’t scare. I was just somebody else, some stranger, and my whole life was a haunted life, the life of a ghost.’
"This was the inspiration to explore the depths of American society impartially, with a more neutral point of view, as someone who is not myself… I began looking at On The Road and took this information, allowed it to consume me, and dictate the kind of self I’d devise."
His most recent work in progress, “Where the Names Were.” Serves as a deep dive into the real and uncanny colliding. Through various means of photography, Dan is stitching narratives together through seemingly disconnected images. The project is looking to continue building on these themes and ideas, by adding locations to the images, to further enrich the narrative with half-truths and white lies. The work can then in turn serve as a reminder not to trust everything entirely, no matter how convincingly the “facts” have been laid out.
“I am excited for what is to come from both my current photographic series ‘Where the Names Were.’, I’m also stoked with how ‘Phonebooks in the Attic’ is developing as a hub for artists and art lovers, I’m thoroughly looking forward to seeing what the future holds for both passions. Thank you to everyone for following along and supporting!”
More from Dan can be found through his Instagram linked below, so be sure to follow to stay up to date with his current practice.