New Look Seen Mag.

The first issue of new look Seen Magazine hit the shelves yesterday and there was a couple of my shots on the opening page! Firstly a pic of editor at large Rebecca Keegan and also this lead image to the feature of the county's favourite choir Sense of Sound.




Click here to read the full mag online.
MF

ITV The Big Reunion. Matt Ford Spotted!

Just a quick post about last nights big reunion show with Atomic Kitten. Plus Five, The Honeys, 911 etc.




Back in Nov 2012 I got asked to shoot some promo shots for newly reformed Atomic Kitten. The shoot was in Camp and Furnace and was the first time in years the group had been papped together.




The shoot finally made tv last night.




I got my second tv appearance in the past 12 month. (Again at camp and Furnace). A lot of the shoot is still under embargo, but here’s a little peek.




MF

GLAM - The performance of style. At The Tate.

As an 80′s child, I don’t profess to have owned a classic Bowie album or swooned over Marc Bolan. But for any fashion and art loving, Ab Fab overdosed, pop culture peruser, surely this exhibition would struggle not to have at least one or two things to deeply relate to. Maybe this exhibition would clear up the evolutionary lines in this seemingly familiar genre.
You may have visited the curator, Darren Pih’s, last show at Tate Liverpool, the in depth and fascinating exploration of French surrealist artist René Magritte. That show saw an epic body of work from an artist admittedly only vaguely recognised by a few. The collection and back story was an invaluable incite into surrealism and Magritte's work that has been constantly understudied by the ever media hogging Dali. Similarly Pih’s journey into The Performance of Style doesn’t fail to inform us of a genre that we sometimes feel like we know everything about.
After the first part of the exhibition tour was over and we had reminisced over the musical exploits of Glam, we started to journey into the seemingly more real underbelly of the time period. While the artwork on display is from some of the nations most treasured collections of the time, I felt like I missed the point to the relevance of certain works.

The David Hockney portrait of Mr and Mrs Clark and Percy, what a beautiful painting, however I can’t imaging the pair swapping middle class bliss for sex, drugs and glittery platforms. And the Andy Warhol 1956 Kitten heal illustration, ‘Four shoe tips’, yes a great example of how an artist progressed in to the later fashion genre but not of the evolution of the genre it self.

(Several fabulous works from fashion photographer Guy Bourdin are on display)
However do not let this put you off, the story continues. Now we discover the darker side of the 70′s via the eye of photographer Nan Golden. With her morbid fascination with real life, you get to peek into the lives of the drug addicted muses of the time. Other works point out what glam really meant, from a point of view deep from with in the art scene. You discover the desire to be androgynous at the time was less about being void of sexuality but owning both in excess at the same time.

(Richard Hamilton. Fashion-plate. 1969-70)
As Pih ends his tour, just past the vintage Vogue’s priced 50p, on how the story of glam started in the 60s and ended sharply in 1974. I prepare to leave slightly unsatisfied still wondering why the era started and what it evolved into. As I do leave though, retracing my steps to the entrance, I realise instead I have the feeling I’d somehow been there and somehow felt what they felt.
I’ve almost forgotten all together about just being an 80s child.
MF.

(The star of the glam advert shot by Nan Golden and a more recent shot of her by my self taken at a Homotopia Event.

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Atomic Kitten. (For ITV2)

 Resurrection-online.

  Resurrection-online.

  Resurrection-online.

 The Liverpool Art Fair.

Chibuku Shake Shake.

 The Shiny New Festival.

 Epstien The Play.

 His and Hers Magazine.

 Hooka Hair Salon.

 Claudia Pink Jewellery.

 Liverpool Pride.

 Reiss Liverpool.

 The Vogue Ball.

  Resurrection-online.

 Resurrection-online.

 Homotopia.

 Leap Festival.

The Liverpool Design Festival. 

Top 3 art picks – Feb 2013.

From the very big galleries, to the grass root ‘best kept secret’ galleries, here, in a nut shell is what I want to go and see art wise in Feb in Liverpool.

Lets start big! With what I can imagine (with my flamboyant taste anyway) this going to be an instant hit.

This exhibition will appeal to the fame hungry generation of today, featuring works by Andy Warhol and one of my personal favourite pop artists, Richard Hamilton.

Dig out your platform’s for….

Glam! The performance of style.
@ Tate Liverpool.
8th Feb- 12th May.

My second choice is another fashion and modern popular culture feast.
As I’m a little bit obsessed with fashion history, quite a bit more than contemporary fashion, so this exhibition seems like the perfect place to put the past century of style in to perspective.
With the fashion of clothing being an unbiased reflection of the minuet social nuances of the masses, in a way the art world can only try to mirror, it sounds like a fascinating way to show how much society really has changed in only 100 years.

20th Century Chic. 100 years of women’s fashion.
@ Sudley House.
16th Feb – (tba)

Last on my radar for Feb, is the very antisapated return of an over 18s art event.

It does what it says on the tin.

Erotic Art Exhibition.
@ The Gallery Liverpool.

Starting 22nd Feb.

Enjoy.

MF

Latest Philip Armstrong collection spotted in Grazia.

The latest and strongest collection, in my eyes, by Philip Armstrong and Tony Burke has been added to the website and the new home page animation. The best shot from the shoot. Has also been used for a double page feature in Grazia Mag.

Made up!

This time we shot the clothes in a slightly more editorial style using a classic 1990′s vogue shoot by Patrick Demarchelier for inspiration.

For the next shoot we will be going all out and dropping the look-book feel for something much more WOW. Can’t wait for that…

Check out the Philip Armstrong website to shop the collection and for more great news like Nicole Scherzinger sporting the collection.
Philiparmstrong.com

April Ashley becomes MBE.

I’ve just spotted this on the Seen Magazine Facebook page from 13th December 2012.

“Congratulations to April Ashely who today received her MBE. Photo Matt Ford.”

I found out last year that there will be a new and rather grand exhibition dedicated to April in the new Museum of Liverpool.

Apart from the fact LGBT issues are being represented there (most specifically transgender) but I’m also hopeful that I will get some more of my work on display in a national museum!

Fingers crossed.

April Ashley (born on 29th April 1935) was a high profile fashion model in her early career, (including Vogue) before she was the first person to be outed by the Sunday people in 1961 as a transsexual.

She has gone on to become an inspiration to thousands and then appointed Member of the Order of The British Empire (MBE) in the 2012 Birthday Honers for service to Transgender equality.

I’m looking forward to finding out more when the exhibition is ready…

MF

This video was filmed during her visit to St George's Hall. The same time the photograph was taken above.