Not 24 Hours
By Andrew Parker
13th February to 23rd March 2018
Open evening 13th February 7-9pm
Not 24 Hours is an offbeat collection of colour photographs depicting the last days of the independent rural filling station, at the margins of British Culture. Places that are both familiar yet unsettling.
Not 24 Hours Consists of colour photographs documenting the last days of rural filling stations. Some survive in spite of fierce competition from supermarkets and less demand for as many garages. In 2004 independent sites numbered 6,182, half the 1990 number, whereas supermarket sights tripled to 1,111 during the same period.
Andrew Parker says:
Small country garages remind me of a time before much of the motorway network was complete, when my father would religiously follow yellow HR (Holiday Route) signs through places like Tiverton, Holsworthy and Torrington to reach our holiday destination.
During the early 1970’s it was mostly an attended service and you didn’t expect the shopping opportunities of a small supermarket. The map, however, has changed, in a very short time span, and the small country garage no longer fits onto it; superseded by road building during the 1970s and 80s, more efficient vehicles, and the seemingly never ending expansion of supermarket garage forecourts.
The Writer David McKie says:
“…aesthetically the death of a filling station is often a bonus. One used to drive through some gentle harmonious village where one note of shrieking discord was the garish display which the garage proprieter had devised in hope of catching the eye of the passing motorist”.
Andrew Parker says:
In Britain we recognise the emblem and appreciate the nostalgia that exists for American gas stations but the British filling station was never such a cherished part of our landscape; discordant rather than an integral part of it.
Andrew Parker trained in photography in Newport at what was Gwent College under the guidance of David Hurn, Ron McCormick,,Daniel Meadows, Keith Arnett and Clive Landen. In 2012 he returned to Newport to participate in the reunion exhibition: 100 Years of Photography In Newport.
In 2015 Not 24 Hours was featured on BBC Breakfast. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/entertainment-arts-32974892/photographing-britain-s-disappearing-petrol-stations
Andrew Parker 07812140103 –
www.andrewparkerlandscapes.co.uk
andrewdparker@tiscali.co.uk
Twitter: @aparkerphotos