PHOTOGRAPY – DREW REYNOLDS, AUBIN & WILLS
by William Dorsey
Aubin and Wills, it turns out, is Jack Wills for yuppies, or whatever is the Noughtie’s equivalent of a yuppie. Gone are the stripy polo shirts – no, wait, they’re still there, but next to them are some scented candles, Egyptian cotton tea towels, and bottles of lavender Linen Water.
Given that their parent company, Jack Wills, describes itself as a University Outfitter, the flaw in the marketing strategy is the assumption that upon leaving university, the next step is to rent an apartment in Notting Hill and start using lavender Linen Water. This neglects the crucial early twenties period, where trainee accountants, lawyers and mini-bankers all try to work out exactly what your mother was doing with the bagful of dirty laundry you brought home at the end of every term. The gap could probably be filled with a line of products that included non-iron, sambucca-resistant dress shirts that only require one cufflink, towels that don’t go mouldy when you leave them in your gym-bag at work over the weekend, and of course stripy polo shirts.
Drew Reynolds is an LA based photographer, specialising in portraits – The Panel Project is a collection of portraits of musicians – including The Kills, Little Boots, and Maximo Park. The works are each panels composed of two to six prints in black and white of the artists. But the venue did him no favours – the works could only be hung where there were no shelves, putting them out of reach, and to a large extent out of sight of the viewer.
That said, what I could see of the works failed to impress. A good portrait should draw you in – make you want to have a conversation with the subject, ask questions of them, imagine what they do when they have an hour or two to themselves.
These portraits almost universally said: “I may be a talented musician, but I’m an incredibly boring individual. I’m not entirely sure I’m playing with a full deck of cards. On my day off I usually go to Shoreditch for a haircut and sometimes I like to look at myself in the mirror.”
Friendly Fires is a case in point – the upper triptych show the classic “prison photo” style – eyes ahead, no emotion. The lower three are shot as “alright, now look crazy”. The resulting contrast is faintly discernable, but not the from the distance I was forced to observe them.
Unfortunately for Drew, this is a poor selection of his work. A cursory look at his website (www.drewreynolds.com) reveals a number of strong, compelling images that demand and retain your interest. But this selection simply reflects the vapid superficiality of the rent-a-life-costume surroundings. Friendly Fire indeed.
