Jeremy-John Stokes
Jeremy Stokes' photography, with its rich interplay of light, shadow, and memory, engages profoundly with both existential and theological reflections on time, history, and the human spirit. His work, captured across places as varied as Kyiv, Vienna, and Achill Island, delves into the concept of presence—the idea that through the photographic act, a moment is brought into the eternal, suspended in a state of tension between being and nothingness. As Heidegger notes in Being and Time, "The essence of being is time" (Heidegger, Being and Time). Stokes’ photographs make manifest this relationship, where each image becomes an intersection of past, present, and future, allowing us to encounter the divine temporality of existence.
In examining the resilience of cities like Kyiv and Lviv, one cannot help but recall the theological writings of Søren Kierkegaard, who emphasizes the notion of suffering as an integral part of human existence. Kierkegaard writes in The Sickness Unto Death, "Suffering is the substance of life, and the root of personality." Stokes’ photographs from these war-torn landscapes are not merely depictions of destruction but of rebirth and restoration. The ruins, the faces of the workers, and the empty streets resonate with Kierkegaard’s notion of despair—but a despair that is transformative, where hope and reconstruction emerge from the ashes. The violence of history is both mourned and transcended, as these images point toward a divine renewal, echoing the Christian concept of resurrection.
Similarly, Stokes’ black-and-white photographs of Vienna resonate with the via negativa, the theological tradition that speaks of God through what is not seen, experienced, or understood. Through his use of monochrome, Stokes removes the vibrancy of color, focusing our attention on form, structure, and shadow, creating a visual language akin to the apophatic—those things that point toward God by negation, by what is absent, as seen in the works of Christian mystics such as John of the Cross. These photographs speak not of the world as it is, but of the ineffable, the presence of God within the absence of clarity. Stokes’ exploration of the urban spaces of Vienna becomes a dialogue between the sacred and the profane, a place where the physical world, in its muted tones, becomes a metaphor for spiritual contemplation.
The powerful landscapes of Achill Island and Montenegro bring to mind the works of the Romantics, particularly in the philosophical inquiries of William Wordsworth and Edmund Burke. Wordsworth’s assertion that "nature never did betray the heart that loved her" (Wordsworth, Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey) is captured poignantly in Stokes’ images. Nature, in these places, speaks with a silent eloquence, where mountains, waves, and fog become symbols of transcendence, akin to the divine revelation in the natural world that Burke describes as the sublime—an experience that is both overwhelming and awe-inspiring. Stokes does not simply photograph landscapes; he captures the theological essence of creation, wherein the visible world is imbued with divine significance, and the majesty of nature becomes an experience of the holy.
Ultimately, Stokes’ work aligns with the literary and theological meditations on memory and presence found in writers like T.S. Eliot, who in Four Quartets speaks of "time present and time past" being "both perhaps present in time future" (Eliot, Four Quartets). His images offer a window into the eternal through the temporal. Like Eliot’s exploration of time, Stokes' photographs present a paradox: they are deeply rooted in the reality of the moment yet transcend that moment to evoke something beyond—something divine. The process of photographing, of halting time, aligns with the photographic miracle described by Barthes: "The photograph is always the past... always a shadow of the absent" (Barthes, Camera Lucida).
In each of Stokes’ images, we are reminded that photography is not just an art form; it is a mode of epistemology—a way of knowing, seeing, and understanding the world. His photographs ask us to engage with the world not as it is, but as it could be: transformed through our gaze, elevated through contemplation, and imbued with the divine. The philosophical and theological depth of his work reminds us that art—like life—is a journey, one that continuously seeks and contemplates the transcendent in the midst of the immanent.
2022: Encounters - Svitlo Gallery - Lviv Ukraine
2020: Nurture Magazine
2019: Fad Magazine - Nocturne, review and interview
2019: Nocturne - 226 Rye Lane - London U.K
2018: Outline - Out of the Brew Arts Cafe - London U.K
2017: Camberwell College of Arts Degree Show
2017: B.A.(Hons) Fine Art - University of the Arts London, Camberwell College of Arts
2017: Crypt Gallery - London U.K
2017: Hotel Elephant - London U.K
2016: Vice Media - Peckham is a paradise
2016: CGP Gallery - London U.K
2016: Meth Odd - The Flying Dutchman - London U.K
jeremyjstokes@gmail.com
Jeremy Stokes 