Studio / Peter Shire

Shot in the Spring of 2019, these photos focus on the elaborate and colourful inventions and interventions in the studio of Peter Shire, the legendary Los Angeles artist, and the sole American member of Memphis Milano, an Italian design and architecture collective founded by Ettore Sottsass. Californian-sun suffused, unpopulated and serene, Ferry's photos create an aleatory portrait of the artist and his work, as seen through captured details of the elaborately personalised tools of its making. Drill presses, door knobs, clay extruders, flat files, book shelves, pottery wheels, toilet seats, and kitchen shelves; all pass through the baroque colour world and hyper modification urge of Shire's vision. The place of work holds the echo of the working life, with creativity, colour and the layers of ideas dovetailing to reside physically on each of its surfaces.