3-D, 2010 © Miles Aldridge — *3-D*, 2010 © Miles Aldridge

There's nothing quite like a Miles Aldridge photo. Of course, Aldridge himself admits that his work is referential—a "mélange" of various inspirations from his own life, as well as from cinema, opera, and art history. But his style is distinct; its saturated colors and unnerving depictions — often of women seemingly on the verge of breakdown — probe reality, consumerism, and luxury, questioning what's normal. Aldridge's first New York retrospective, Virgin Mary. Supermarkets. Popcorn. Photographs 1999 to 2020. poses some of these questions; such as, "Are we trapped in a hyperreality?"

The following has been condensed from a longer conversation between Miles Aldridge and interviewer Emma Mathes.

EMMA MATHES: It's so nice to speak with you.

MILES ALDRIDGE: Thank you! I liked that you mentioned the Almeida project that I'd done. It's nice to talk about that. I basically offered my services to the Almeida Theatre for free for a year, pretty much. I was interested in the work they were doing and I kind of wanted to know a bit more about directing and that world in general. And it was really great from both sides, I believe. They got this artwork, and I got to kind of hang out watching them rehearse, and that was an incredible schooling, actually. I learned so much.

The Ninth Hour (after Cattelan), 2016 © Miles Aldridge — *The Ninth Hour (after Cattelan)*, 2016 © Miles Aldridge

EMMA: Have you always been a lover of theatre?

MILES: I always had a kind of desire to educate myself, from being at art school. I'd get kind of upset or slightly angry if I hadn't seen a piece of theater or a new film, or [listened] to a piece of new music at least two or three times a week. I think I irritated some of my peers because I was sort-of dragging them with me to come see something. I think as an artist, in order to be critical of your own work, you need to have heightened critical senses about work in general. So yeah, theatre has been often my sort-of target, something I want to really understand, and also opera as well. And having that interest in opera and theater, and of course cinema, plays into my own aesthetic, which is towards a more theatrical or stylized experience of life.

EMMA: In terms of your style, color is incredibly important. You've mentioned before A Matter of Life and Death and how the film's coloring choices moved you. Can you talk more about your love of cinema and how it has motivated your artistic eye?

MILES: Yeah! Powell and Pressburger's film, A Matter of Life and Death, I would've seen when I was very young. I think I was about ten when I saw it on the television in London. And the images in this technicolor seared into my consciousness, and have stayed with me ever since. I think because I would've seen them at home, they would've felt very otherworldly. Of course, they came from a universe called the 1940s, where things were just different—people spoke differently and colors were rendered differently. When I became a photographer in my early 30s, I had a sort-of opportunity to choose a way of working, and I gravitated to the colors that I'd remembered from that film, but also other films by Hitchcock, and Douglas Sirk, where the color was otherworldly.

Something I’ve said before about my work is that I like to think of it as real life, but seen as a Hollywood musical or an Italian opera. Everything should be larger than life, and there should be a giddy sense of intoxication from the color. I think some of my photographs do feel like they're midway through an aria.

Mystique #1, 2018 © Miles Aldridge — *Mystique #1*, 2018 © Miles Aldridge

EMMA: You say you want to capture a kind of real life, but your oeuvre has been deemed dystopian, which, I think actually… I think it's kind of the same thing these days.

MILES: [He laughs] The world has been in this almost dystopic state, yes.

EMMA: Do you feel like this dystopic state affects how an audience would view your work now versus seeing it beforehand?

MILES: I think that's a good point. And the whole sort of Trump thing has given me pause to consider my work. That moment of time in American politics really illustrated the point that truth is stranger than fiction. And so, when I'm creating sort of dystopian ideas about luxury or about happiness, and then read something in The New York Times about the president of the American government and what's going on, it's like, God, I can't even compete. And it really did give me pause to think. Is the work different when the world it's seen in is different? And I think it is! I think it really is.

EMMA: The Trump administration, in a way, aesthetically, feels like a work of yours. Bright, and gaudy, with a darkness behind it all. Gold toilets, and what-not...

MILES: Yeah! It was almost like all the darkness that I sort of subtly sprinkle into my pictures was sort-of just daily life. Just read the newspapers, it's all there. You know, the corruption, the mendacity... When the imagery is surreal, that's fine if the world is slightly normal. But when the world is surreal, it's really hard to know what images to put out there.

The Kiss, 2011 © Miles Aldridge — *The Kiss*, 2011 © Miles Aldridge

EMMA: I'm interested in your relationship with your father. He was also a famous artist, and I wonder if that had an effect on your artistic and cultural upbringing?

MILES: Yes, for sure. My father was a super brilliant art director and illustrator. He was right in the middle of London's zeitgeist in the mid-to late 60s into the 70s. He was almost like rock-and-roll royalty, in as much as he worked for the Beatles and the Rolling Stones and Elton John, The Who — he was really part of that Swinging 60s London, [and] what he created were psychedelic, erotic, and counterculture images. They were shocking and they were brilliant. I mean— his poster for Andy Warhol's Chelsea Girls, I have a copy of it hanging in my flat, and I look at it every morning. And I'll be honest with you, I am staggered by the brilliance of it every morning. I'm staggered by the mind that created it.

In a way, I always felt that about my dad. I think during my early years at art school, I always felt slightly under his shadow — it was almost impossible to create something. But, through photography I found a different way. And of course, I think his use of color was incredibly wild, [and] when I started to work in color, it wasn't just the films of Powell and Pressburger that would serve [as inspiration], but also my father's work.

EMMA: You've described the retrospective with Fotografiska as the end of "a long journey." So, I guess my question is, where are you going next?

MILES: Well, who knows. [he laughs] Nothing obvious springs to mind — there's other images that I'm excited to make, but it does feel, when you have a retrospective or an exhibition, or similarly a retrospective book, like it's a look back on the work. As I mentioned, I think the madness of the Trump years has really given me pause to think about some of the images, as to whether they are crazy enough to match this world. I'd love to say I'm starting to make a film, but to be honest, it's nice to have the work done and to just feel that this journey is over, and I'm looking forward to embarking on something soon.

EMMA: Are you interested in directing?

MILES: I am! Very interested in directing. It keeps being sort-of dangled in front of me as an idea of something to do. It's just a question of whether that is interesting for people to watch. I think my work, my film, if I were to make one, would be more stylized than most, and sometimes when I see films which are stylized I find it very boring because you keep getting locked out of story by the visuals. The basic desire to understand story and follow the story gets kind of stopped because you are being presented with things which should be in an art gallery, visuals wise... I'm conscious of [the fact that] my father spent a long time in Hollywood trying to make films — that's my other kind of note to myself, to not end up like the classic Englishman waiting for the phone to ring in a hotel room. [he laughs]

Miles Aldridge’s Virgin Mary. Supermarkets. Popcorn. Photographs from 1999 to 2020. is on display at Fotografiska New York until October.