Back to index of Nerve 8 - Spring 2006

Ikonography Photography

Kathy and Barry Cheung run ‘Ikonography’, a new photography studio and gallery based in Mathew Street. Kathy spoke to Nerve about how they started.

Barry and I met in about 1990, when we both worked as IT anoraks for a manufacturing company. But when the two children arrived, we realised that the gravy train had to stop. For a long time we had been thinking about starting our own business. It had to be something that would be commercial enough to pay the mortgage but creative enough for self-expression.

Barry’s been into black and white film-based stuff for years. I’ve always been mad on manipulating images, and one day my eldest son came home from nursery school with his photo. It was dire. Barry turned to me and said, “We could do better than that now - why not go for it?” Not needing to be asked twice, I handed in my notice and arranged to go on the National Diploma course at the City College. At this point I also made contact with Aware, the photographic workshop on Lark Lane.

We ran out of money pretty quickly and I had to get a contract working for an insurance company up in Lytham. I stuck that for a year and then we risked it all - remortgaged the house, joined a business support programme with Blue Orchid - and off we went!

It’s our intention for the “commercial” to support the “art” by paying for the overheads on the gallery so that up-and-coming artists can be exhibited in the most famous street in the country. But it is a condition that those artists do their bit to help the cause.

All we really needed was a place to take clients for shoots, somewhere accessible. But this place offers so much more. It used to be the Mathew Street Gallery - showcasing work associated with The Beatles - so it already had a decent pedigree. It made sense to keep the gallery going.

Our first exhibition showcased work by Sue Sumner, Colin Serjent, Laurence Carl, Lonn Landis, Alan McKernan, Neil Richards (and myself and Barry of course!).

The next exhibition will open early March and will be based on the theme of love, marriage and partnership. We are inviting artists to submit work for display, and we hope to have quite an eclectic mix of work. At the same time we’ll have a marketing push for the weddings.

Following that we will have a retrospective of Colin Serjent and Sue Milburn’s work, which we’re really looking forward to.

Later in the year we hope to hold a ‘Cut and Paste’ exhibition, which will show how the advent of digital photography has changed the way we work and how nowadays the camera always lies!

We’re also planning to host an exhibition for the Arabic Arts Festival, which takes place in June, and a ‘live performance’ exhibition around the time of the Summer Pops.

Visit their website: www.ikonography.net