Philip Tonkyn has worked internationally as an illustrator and was previously Director of Art at Portsmouth Grammar School. He has now returned to live and work in his home town of Glastonbury. His clients have included Brian Aldiss, Robert Heinlein, Frederick Pohl, Der Spiegel, Hawkwind, Granada, Penguin, Pan and Watkins Books.

In his more recent photographic works, Philip Tonkyn describes moments when, through the sublime fusion of landscape and light, a glimpse is revealed of an Otherworld that is deeply known in our hearts.

Several photographs are merged into large composite landscapes, recreating the experience of the place at that magical moment. These large images invite close examination but they are equally icons of meditation. Each is conceived as an eternal moment; a portal through which a deeper reality of being is found. In the case of the Sacred Sites, this perhaps accords with their original purpose.

The Simulacra Series takes sections of photographs of the natural world and reflect them. In the symmetry we discover a new animism, very reminiscent of the elemental spirits of long tradition. This sense of 'Genius Loci' is reinforced by the strong relationship between the 'spirit' forms and the places in which they were photographed.