A new photographic exhibition titled Minimal Works by British photographer Connor Daly will open at ArtHouse Jersey's Capital House location on Friday, January 16, offering what organizers describe as a vibrant splash of color during the darkest winter months. The show will continue through Sunday, February 1, 2026, featuring large-scale photographic studies that transform ordinary urban environments into compelling compositions of color, material, and geometric form. Developed over six years and concluding in 2022, the series represents a significant exploration of how photographic framing can alter perception and challenge assumptions about objective truth in visual documentation.
Connor Daly, who works between the United Kingdom and Jersey, has established himself as an award-winning photographer with international exhibition experience. His Minimal Works series evolved gradually, reflecting his changing artistic practice over nearly a decade. Despite the project's official conclusion three years ago, Daly acknowledges that the series retains a lingering feeling of incompleteness, suggesting that artistic exploration often continues beyond the final printed image. This reflective perspective informs how viewers experience the work, encouraging them to question whether photography truly captures reality or merely constructs a version of it.
The exhibition deliberately challenges photography's traditional claim to objectivity by presenting familiar urban spaces in unfamiliar ways. Daly's lens captures mundane locations—including road markings and parking lots—and reimagines them as vivid, abstract compositions. Many of the photographs were taken in Jersey, meaning local audiences may recognize sites from their daily lives transformed into something entirely new through careful attention to color relationships and spatial arrangements. This approach invites viewers to see their environment with fresh eyes, noticing aesthetic qualities they might otherwise overlook in their routine movements through the city.
ArtHouse Jersey's head of program, James Tyson, expressed enthusiasm about launching the organization's 2026 exhibition calendar with Daly's work. He described the photographer as someone who has intrepidly sought to capture both familiar and everyday spaces, revealing their hidden visual potential. The exhibition serves as the first installment under ArtHouse Jersey's New Work Programme, which receives sponsorship from Coutts Crown Dependencies. This support enables the organization to champion emerging and established artists while fostering a stronger creative community on the island.
Daly himself expressed deep gratitude toward the ArtHouse Jersey team, whose support he described as immeasurable and impossible to quantify in words. He credited the organization with championing not only his work but the broader artistic community in Jersey. The photographer also acknowledged how the Minimal Works series connected him with diverse characters and organizations that subsequently assisted him in producing new projects. These relationships demonstrate how a single body of work can ripple outward, creating opportunities and collaborations that extend far beyond the original images.
The timing of the exhibition during winter months is intentional, offering visitors a visually stimulating experience when natural light and color are scarce. By presenting work that has been collecting what Daly calls digital dust, the show gives new life to images that have been revisited and reconsidered for years. Minimal Works ultimately asks viewers to contemplate how artistic vision can transform the mundane into the extraordinary, and how a photographer's choices shape the story an image tells. The exhibition stands as a testament to patience and persistence in artistic development, proving that some creative projects require years of contemplation before they are ready for public viewing.
