Andrew Catlin

Catlin grew up equally intrigued by both arts and science. His father was a drama producer at the BBC, his mother a senior staff member at the Royal College of Art. His childhood was spent in London in the 1960s, during a time of great political and social change.

In 1978, he was awarded the Prince Philip Prize for Zoology by the Zoological Society of London[1] for a research project completed while at school. After attending University College School in London, he continued his studies with a psychology degree at Durham University before returning to London to do a research degree in Learning and Development at University College London.

During this time he also developed his growing interest in photography. Early work for NME, Melody Maker, Smash Hits, and Spin quickly extended to other publications, and commissions from record companies, musicians, designers and artists internationally. His work appeared on numerous record sleeves, books and magazine covers. He was one of the photographers chosen to document the Live Aid concert in 1985 and was the largest single contributor to the subsequent exhibition and book.[2]

During the 1980s he began directing music videos.[3] During a visit to Japan while working with Bryan Adams, he was experimenting with a Super-8 movie camera, when Adams asked if he would film one of his live songs. The stark black and white clip that followed was reviewed by Chrissy Iley in Direction Magazine as a great debut. His second video, for the Cowboy Junkies track, Blue Moon was given a feature in Direction: "Blue Moon surprised me, impressed me, and I'm hard to impress, especially with performance videos. Its approach is not clinical or technical or corporate. But its flickered lights and sepia faces strike a mood that few directors of the three-minute clip even bother to think necessary. The facial expressions are important to him, and are carefully monitored with his portraiture eye. Fortunately, MTV shared my view and put it on heavy rotation."(Chrissy Iley). Again self-taught, Catlin built on this early experience to create numerous music videos and films in the role of director or director of photography, and sometimes both.

Catlin was Director of Photography for Elements of Mine, a film by Egyptian Director Khaled El Hagar which was awarded First Prize in the Toronto Moving Pictures Festival (MoPix Award 2004).

He had long standing working relationships and collaborations with Simon Hilton, Stefania Malmsten, Seamus McGarvey, Susanne Freytag, Carole Morin, Propaganda, New Order, Bryan Adams, Jesus and Mary Chain, Joan Armatrading, Paul Davis, Blacks Club, Ian McCulloch (Echo & the Bunnymen), Tim Soar, Danny Pope, Susheela Raman, WOMAD, The Pogues, Shane MacGowan, Primal Scream, 23 Skidoo, Last Few Days, The Sugarcubes, The Pixies, Tanya Donnelly.[4]

In 2008, drawing together experience from photography, filmmaking and graphic design, he began a project called "The Matrix Series", exploring graphic compositions with complex multi-frame narratives. Each piece was shot as a set of images designed to interact in multiple dimensions, combining elements of time, movement, rhythm, narrative and graphic structure, while remaining within an essentially documentary framework. One of the first collectors to acquire a print was fashion designer Paul Smith for his HQ shop in London's Floral Street. In his essay, “Nine Hastings Photographers” Vasileios Kantas proposes that "Andrew Catlin’s imagery formations could be considered as a study on perception. His matrix suggests a unique syntax, of which the visual elements have been formed partly coincidentally - the subject’s actions - and partly in a controllable way - the photographer’s decisions. The way the sub-frames are selected and positioned in the matrix is preconceived, though it does not serve the linearity of time which seems to be loosened, if not abolished. The display of the sub-frames allows different reading strategies, seemingly serving many goals simultaneously." Sean O'Hagan (journalist), photography writer for The Observer, notes "In his Matrix series, he has somehow merged the rigorously formal with the luminously observational. Whereas the likes of Blossfeldt and the Bechers created visual typologies, arranging plants and industrial water towers respectively in grids that echo the natural and man-made sameness of their subjects, Catlin has used the grid format to render a series of what he calls “critical” moments. The resulting images are both formally detached and acutely observational, ordered yet intimate. Their intimacy is amplified by the cumulative power of each arrangement of critical moments into a matrix of observation"..."The Matrix Series explores rhythm, space and time to provide a unique way to see.” elaborates Catlin, “Each is a collection of moments, separately composed but directly connected.” The notion of rhythm is, I think, crucially important here. A rhythm, is a way of measuring time in music, and there is something musical in these matrixes, a minimalist set of repetitions and variations that Steve Reich or Philip Glass might instinctively recognise. He has created something both hybrid and singular: time suspended, time passing, time measured in still, unfolding moments. Time arranged in mathematical rhythm, in musical sequence, in critical moments. Andrew Catlin is a photographer with a scientific eye. He is obsessive, meticulous and rigorous, but also a quiet, unobtrusive observer of the everyday sublime. It shines brightly though his big pictures."

Current projects include photography, music videos and documentaries, art direction, films, exhibitions and books. Catlin maintains an eclectic involvement in photography, film, video, education, art direction, directorships, music, internet and art.

Catlin was quoted on photography in Varsity Magazine:[5] "For me a great photograph needs to have a sense of intrigue. There needs to be a reason to revisit it again and again. Unanswered questions that make further exploration of the image an imperative. Reinterpretation through imagination, consideration and connection. If a picture doesn't have the depth to engage in these ways – if it doesn't make you think and reflect – it may have great visual or emotional impact, but it is superficial.

"A photographer must first see. An act of observation, study and recognition. Second, record. The act of composition, a feeling for light, interpretation. Thirdly, reflect. Consider in more depth the meaning of the image. Edit from a sequence; perhaps change the colour, density, contrast or light in the picture to adjust balance, weight and emphasis within the frame. Some photographers crop, others never do as a matter of principle.

"It doesn't matter. You must arrive at an image you continue to learn from long after it was taken. Something that draws you in and allows you to explore the dynamics of the situation you reacted to and recorded, perhaps quite instinctively, in greater depth. 'The contemplation of things as they are is in itself a nobler thing than a whole harvest of invention.' (Francis Bacon)"

His photography is held in major collections and archives worldwide, including The National Portrait Gallery in London[6] and the Schwules Museum in Berlin.[7]

• The Diorama (London) - Last Few Days
• National Portrait Gallery (London) Collection
• Live Aid Exhibition (London) (1985)
• L'Escargot (London)[8]
• Browns (London)
• Electro Gallery (St. Leonards)
• Schwules Museum (Berlin)
• SoCo Gallery (Hastings)
• British Council Touring Exhibition (international)
• NME (London)
• The Photographers' Gallery (London)
• National Portrait Gallery (London) - She Bop (2003)
• Paul Smith Collection (London)
• National Portrait Gallery (London) - Benjamin's Britain (2006)
• National Portrait Gallery (London) - Four Corners (2007)
• The Enterprise (London) (2009)
• F-ish Gallery (Hastings) (2011)
• Bodelwyddan Castle - Made in 1988 Exhibition (2013)
• Lucy Bell Gallery (2013)
• Trinity 7 Gallery (Hastings) (2014)
• The Gallery (Liverpool) - Marc Almond: Addicted to Excess (2017)
• Beningbrough Hall (York) - Making Her Mark (2017)
• Lucy Bell Gallery - Contact Sheets (2018)
• National Portrait Gallery London - Contemporary Portraits (2019)
• Coastal Currents (2019)
• Lucy Bell Gallery - Friends of Derek (2020)

• Live Aid: The Official Book (1985), paperback
• King Ink by Nick Cave (1988), hardcover
• Bryan Adams by Bryan Adams and Andrew Catlin (1995), editions: hardcover, paperback
• A Drink with Shane MacGowan (paperback & hardback) by Shane MacGowan (author), Victoria Mary Clarke (2005), editions: hardcover, paperback
• Pogue Mahone Kiss My Arse: The Story of the Pogues (hardcover) by Carol Clerk (2007), editions: hardcover, paperback
• It Crawled from the South: An R.E.M. Companion by Marcus Gray, editions: hardcover, paperback
• Wire: Everybody Loves a History by Kevin S. Eden (1991), editions: softcover ISBN 9780946719075
• Nick Cave by Maximilian Dax (1999), hardcover
• Tape Delay: Confessions from the Eighties Underground by Charles Neal (2001), editions: softcover ISBN 0946719020
• They're Not Laughing Now by Alexander Brattell and Andrew Catlin (2010), editions: hardcover
• Vel by Andrew Catlin, Susheela Raman and Sam Mills (2011), editions: hardcover
• The Jesus and Mary Chain, by Andrew Catlin, Jim Reid and Julie Reid (2012), editions: hardcover
• Here Comes Everybody: The Story of the Pogues, by James Fearnley (2014), editions: softcover ISBN 057125540X, 9780571255405
• Marc Almond's Visual Tome, by Ian David Monroe (2014), editions: hardcover
• Marc Almond - Trials of Eyeliner, by Alex Petridis (2016), editions: hardcover
• Sinéad O'Connor 48, by Andrew Catlin (2017), editions: hardcover
• Shane MacGowan Threescore, by Andrew Catlin (2018), editions: hardcover

• David Holmes: "69 Police" (2000)
• Medal: ‘Porno Song’ (1999)
• Medal: ‘Up Here For Hours’ (1999)
• Delakota: '555' (1998)
• Delakota: 'C’mon Cincinnati' (1998)
• Ether: ‘Best Friend’ (1999)
• Satellite Beach: ‘Psycho’ (1998)
• Ether: ‘She Could Fly’ (1998)
• Iron Maiden: 'The Angel & The Gambler' (1998)
• Radiator: ‘I Am’ (1997)
• Ether: ‘If You If Really Want To Know’ (1997)
• Naimee Coleman: 'Care About You' (1996)
• Eternal: 'Secrets' (1996)
• Planet Claire: ‘Say’ (1996)
• Planet Claire: ‘21’ (1996)
• World Domination Enterprises: 'Company News' (1988)
• World Domination Enterprises: 'Can't Live Without My Radio' (1988)
• That Petrol Emotion: 'Detonate' (1993)
• Ed Harcourt: 'Black Feathers' (2009)
• William Orbit: 'Hello Waveforms' (2006)
• Princess Diana Tribute: 'We Are the World' (1997)

• Aref Durvesh: 'Outerindia One' (dir/DOP: Andrew Catlin) (2009)
• Susheela Raman: 'Ganapati' (dir/DOP: Andrew Catlin) (2001)
• Susheela Raman: 'Salt Rain' (dir/DOP: Andrew Catlin) (2001)
• Susheela Raman: 'Maya' (dir/DOP: Andrew Catlin) (2002)
• Susheela Raman: 'Orphea' (dir/DOP: Andrew Catlin) (2010)
• Susheela Raman: 'Tomorrow Never Knows' (dir/DOP: Andrew Catlin) (2016)
• Susheela Raman: 'Annabel' (dir/DOP: Andrew Catlin) (2018)
• Susheela Raman: 'Tanpa Nama' (dir/DOP: Andrew Catlin) (2018)
• Susheela Raman: 'Ghost' (dir/DOP: Andrew Catlin) (2019)
• Susheela Raman: 'Going Down' (dir/DOP: Andrew Catlin) (2019)
• Susheela Raman: 'Spoons' (dir/DOP: Andrew Catlin) (2019)
• Susheela Raman: 'Sphinx' (dir/DOP: Andrew Catlin) (2019)
• Susheela Raman: 'Beautiful Moon' (dir/DOP: Andrew Catlin) (2019)
• Doros Quintet: 'Cherubim' (dir/DOP: Andrew Catlin) (2015)
• Deacon Blue: 'Love and Regret' (dir/DOP: Andrew Catlin) (1989)
• Pogues: 'Rainy Night in Soho' (dir/DOP: Andrew Catlin) (1991)
• Kinky Machine: 'Supernatural Giver' (dir: Andrew Catlin) (1992)
• Fin: "Sweet Obsession" (dir: Andrew Catlin) (1992)
• Pooka: "City Sick" (dir: Andrew Catlin) (1993)
• Scalaland: ‘Snow White Lies’ (dir/DOP: Andrew Catlin) (1995)
• Scalaland: ‘Call Me’ (dir/DOP: Andrew Catlin) (1995)
• Bryan Adams: 'Please Forgive Me' (dir: Andrew Catlin) (1993)
• Bryan Adams: 'Straight from the Heart '(5 screen version) (dir: Andrew Catlin) (1993)
• Bryan Adams: 'Summer of '69' (Live) (dir: Andrew Catlin) (1993)
• Bryan Adams: 'Run To You' (Live) (dir: Andrew Catlin) (1992)
• Bryan Adams: 'Into the Fire' (dir/DOP: Andrew Catlin) (1988)
• Bryan Adams: 'When the Night Comes' (dir: Andrew Catlin) (1993)
• Bryan Adams: 'Cmon Everybody' (dir: Andrew Catlin) (1993)
• Bryan Adams: 'Let's Make a Night to Remember' (dir: Andrew Catlin) (1996)
• C.C.: 'All Right' (dir/DOP: Andrew Catlin) (1995)
• C.C.: 'Beautiful' (dir/DOP: Andrew Catlin) (1995)
• C.C. 'Shelter' (dir/DOP: Andrew Catlin) (1995)
• C.C.: 'Roots Scared' (dir/DOP: Andrew Catlin) (1995)
• Linda Eder 'From This Moment On' (dir/DOP: Andrew Catlin) (1989)
• Cowboy Junkies: 'Blue Moon' (dir/DOP: Andrew Catlin) (1988)
• Green on Red 'The Quarter' (dir/DOP: Andrew Catlin) (1989)
• Green on Red 'Little Things' (dir/DOP: Andrew Catlin) (1989)
• Green on Red 'Arrested' (dir/DOP: Andrew Catlin) (1989)

• Bryan Adams: ‘When The Night Comes’ (Live) (dir: Andrew Catlin)
• Susheela Raman: ‘The Queen Elizabeth Hall’ (Live) 2012 (dir: Andrew Catlin)
• Susheela Raman: ‘Barbican’ (Live) 2017 (dir: Andrew Catlin)
• Susheela Raman: ‘Souq Waqif’ (Recording) 2019 (dir: Andrew Catlin)
• Susheela Raman: ‘Montpellier’ (Live) 2019 (dir: Andrew Catlin)

• Bryan Adams: Waking Up the World CBC Documentary (1993) (dir: Andrew Catlin)
• Bryan Adams: Waking Up The World DVD Release (2003) (dir: Andrew Catlin)

• Elements of Mine:[9] (dir: Khaled El Hagar/Norbert Servos)
  • Winner First Prize – Moving Pictures Festival, Toronto (MoPix Award 2004)
• Gumball 3000:[10] documentary of First European rally/race. (1999) (dir. Simon Hilton)

Media related to Andrew Catlin at Wikimedia Commons

• Official website
• National Portrait Gallery
• Danny Pope/Steidelville
• The Rock Hard Times
• Pogues Website
• MVD Database
• Artist Direct
• Waking Up the World Review
• Artnet
• f-ishExhibition Review
• Varsity Interview
• Blurb Interview
• Sean O'Hagan Essay
• William Turnbull Portrait
• Soundgarden Interview