BIOGRAPHY, EXHIBITIONS & PRESS

Gavin Watson grew up in a typical working class overspill town that surround London. Stumbling into photography aged 14, becoming a skinhead at 15, he inadvertently documented the real social interracial music scene behind the media’s right-wing portrayal of a demonised youth culture. Undiscovered until the 1990s, his work became a blueprint for the work of filmmaker Shane Meadows, and significantly influences a generation of photographers working today.

“I was a shy child. At fourteen, I felt completely isolated from society. At Christmas 1978 I went to Woolworths with mum for my present. I was sure I wanted binoculars, but in the glass cabinet there was also a camera. Standing there I thought, ‘fuck it’, I’ll have the camera. I just took pictures of my family and friends, it was all very insular.

When I saw my very first prints something went BANG. I was drawn into photography on the spot. The following year, as me and my mates became skinheads I took more and more photos and found myself using the camera like a pro. But I was still nervous, so I wouldn’t photograph other people: It was all about my friends. If I hadn’t been a skinhead, the result would be very different. They’d all be V signing at the camera, shouting ‘fuck off you wanker!’ It’s why I haven’t got the atypical pictures of what society thinks skinheads are, or even what skinheads think they are. My photos have Asian kids, they have black kids. My first girlfriend was Pakistani. But why should I have to explain that to anyone?

My pictures went unseen until years after when they were discovered in a box amongst thousands at a community darkroom facility which I used to make prints. They were selected for a book about youth culture. And that’s when it all started, my first book was published and I was part of a street style exhibition in the Victoria & Albert Museum. But I wasn’t prepared for any form of success, it all went over my head.

A decade later, when Shane Meadows made This is England, I was able to deal with what I’d created. He discovered my book and made a story out of it — it’s very close to the bone, like watching my life.

Everything goes back to my subjects. I loved my friends. I would have died for them, and I nearly did. And I loved photography. And there it was. That was it.”

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Exhibitions

Slam Jam Spazio Maiocchi, Milan: When The Kids Were Alright (solo show) (2023)

Photo London, Somerset House: Exhibiting with ACC Artbooks (2023)

Queensland University of Technology Art Museum, Australia: Exchange Value (2019)

Comodo64 Gallery, Turin: MYAR (2018)

Iconoclastes Gallery, Paris: Raving ‘89 (2018)

Camden Stables Market, Youth Club Unite and Take Over (2017)

Leeds International Festival: Unity Through Subculture (Talk) (2017)

Spectrum, Brighton: Behind the Beat (group show) (2017)

The Photographers Gallery, London: Punk Weekender (group show) (2016)

Doomed Gallery, Dalston, London: Time Has Creative Power (Talk) (2016)

Hoxton Bar & Kitchen, London: Youth Club Origins East (group show) (2016)

Victoria & Albert Museum, London: Staying Power: Photographs of Black British Experience (group show) (2015)

Doc Martins Store, Paris (2012)

Studio 55, Carnaby St, London: Neville (2010)

London Gallery West, University of Westminster: 110 (2010)

Space Studios, Ilford: Raving '89 1 (2010)

Space Studios, London: Neu! (group show) (2010)

Vice Milan, Italy (2009)

White Columns Gallery, New York: Raving '89 1 (2009)

Färgfabriken, Stockholm: Raving ‘89 (2009)

Manchester International Festival, Nexus Art Cafe: (+Talk) (2009)

Plink Plonk, Estonia (2009)

Lowndes Court Gallery, Carnaby Street: London Skins & Punks (2008)

Magnum Opus Tattoo, Brighton: Under The Skins (2008)

Tilsammans, Bergen, Norway: Skins (2008)

Helsinki 10, Finland: Skins & Punks (2008)

Lydmar Hotel, Sweden (2007)

Somewhere, Denmark: Skins (2007)

PYMCA Gallery, London: This was England (group show) (2007)

Victoria & Albert Museum, London: Street Style Curated by Ted Polhemus (group show) (1994)

Horse Hospital, London (1994)

Camera Press, London (1994)


Press

Selected Press Links

The Guardian My Best Shot: Interview by Henry Yates

Dazed Digtial In Pictures: The Multicultural Roots of the Skinheads by Emily Dinsdale

Until a few years ago Gavin's images had been held within underground cult status, with his work being brought into the media by Shane Meadows after images from ‘Skins’ Gavin's first book were used as the inspiration and muse for the award winning film This is England.

He is now recognised and held in great esteem across the globe and as it states on the back of his latest release with Vice and Powerhouse Books, Skins & Punks even Terry Richardson thinks “he is a genius”. Gavin's natural eye for a moment in time and the stark, brutal honesty of the images he captured have made his collection of work one of the UK’s finest documentary and portrait portfolios.

He has shot campaigns for Dr. Martens and Levis, alongside featuring in countless music magazines, album covers, fashion bibles such as Vice, Art Rocker, Arena and The Times. His work has been showcased across the globe at numerous solo shows and exhibitions.

“Watson photographed from the inside, the only member of a provincial and isolated gang with a camera, only occasionally aware that his friends were part of a larger moment…. Some of his photographs are funny, some are tender, some are domestic. Many of them show skinheads smiling, others display a great vulnerability: young boys struggling for their place in an adult world. If there is aggression it is playful and uncertain. And in the background sits an unbeautified England of the 80s, a harsh depiction of extreme disunity.”

—The Observer, 2009

i-D Photographing the Heyday of Skinhead Culture by Miss Rosen

Creative Review Changing the narrative around skinheads by Megan Williams

Clash Magazine Gavin Watson: Eras In Flux by Zoe Whitfield