Nick Servian has been a frequent visitor to Photospace Gallery for years, and so it's with pleasure that we finally get to exhibit his work here. I must admit to being a little iffy about the idea of an entire exhibition of photos of mannequins; that is until I saw the photos. As expected, there is humour, but it is mixed with a dark, Gothic sensibility and contains plenty of nods to photographic  history and that of other visual arts.

Nick Servian has been a professional photographer since a mac was a raincoat and a photoshop was a place to buy film.  He worked in England for 12 years, photographing landscapes and cathedrals, and since settling in New Zealand he’s worked with most of Wellington’s top advertising agencies and designers.
  
Assignments have taken him all over the world, from New York to Zurich, Tokyo to Timaru and Washington to Wagga Wagga.  His photographs have featured in books, magazines, advertisements and annual reports, and on everything from billboards to postage stamps.
 
Nick has been awarded Fellowships of both the British and New Zealand Institutes of Professional Photography.  He has won many awards for his work, including First Prize in the BIPP Fine Art Awards in London. He has had solo exhibitions of his photographs of Manhattan and Havana, as well as showing at the Academy of Fine Arts in Wellington and Webb’s Fine Art Gallery in Auckland.
 
He has always had a fascination for mannequins.  They offer a glimpse into society’s ideal of beauty at a particular point in time, sometimes long-gone.  Some of these photographs were made at the Purfex mannequin factory in Auckland.

'Dummies for Windows' shows at Photospace Gallery, 1st floor, 37 Courtenay Place, Wellington, from 4th August to 21st August, 2017. The opening function is on Friday 4th August, 5pm-7pm.

The Mannequin Makers Documentary - featuring the Purfex factory, with Nick Servian interview.