Shaun Fynn is a photographer, artist and author. A keen observer of culture and storyteller of everyday life, his work explores the human condition in the context of our increasingly urban world. Architecture, the materiality of urban spaces, work, culture, consumption, landscape, impermanence, and spirituality are just some themes and concepts explored in his work. Collectively, these themes offer a unique and visceral perspective on the urban stage and cities as living entities.
Working primarily in the photographic medium, his work also incorporates montage and film making. Reflecting on modernity and culture through a social realist lens, his work resides in the realm of fine arts as well as the related fields of journalism and documentary. Often going beyond the incidental or serendipitous nature of street photography, his work remains easily accessible as it opens the door and explore life within. As the founder of the design and brand agency StudioFYNN, his photographic work also draws on the compositional nature of architectural form and an in-depth exposure to consumer culture. His global agency experience in London, Milan and Los Angeles serving the world of design and commerce for over two decades inspired him to pursue and alternate voice of expression through the photographic arts as a chronicler and storyteller, prompting us to consider the issues of global growth, consumption, environmental and social impact and the intrinsic paradoxes.
India had always intrigued and allured him and to journey with India is to reflect; a window to life and a portal to the experiences of a universal human condition. Arriving in Mumbai in 2000 was to glimpse a rapidly changing and urbanizing world. It was also the beginning of his 20+ year photographic journey through India that has evolved to tell a more contemporary story of a complex land and culture. From 2012 to 2015 he lived and worked full time in Chandigarh and thus tells his story in India as a lived experience and not solely a traveller, hence the distinguishing perspectives present in much of his work. Living in Chandigarh was also the catalyst for his first book, Chandigarh Revealed/Le Corbusier’s City Today (Princeton Architectural Press / Mapin 2017). In 2023 his second book, Departures: A Journey with India (Oro Editions/Goff books) was published and is the largest body of his work on India to date.
Whilst India forms a large body of his work, recent and current projects explore new geographies and journeys. His work continues to explore urban and natural landscapes through experiments with montage as aggregates of memory, experience and place. Montage also provides a new dimension to his work experimenting with not just what we see, but how we see whilst facilitating a platform and medium for the creation of large-scale artworks.
His collective works have been featured and exhibited in multiple forums including the Museum of Modern Art and the Sheila C. Johnson Design Center in New York City, The United Nations International Labour Organization, The Atlantic, the Los Angeles Times, The Guardian and the collections of the Getty, the Yale Center for British Art, the Victoria & Albert Museum and the Clark Art Institute. Born in the UK and currently based in New York, he remains the founder and principal of StudioFYNN. A graduate of Central Saint Martin’s College of Art and Design in London, he has been a visiting lecturer at the National Institute of Design in India and is currently a part time professor at Parsons School of Design in New York City.