Philip Tonkyn has been an artist, illustrator and art teacher for over forty years. He has an MA in Art and Design Education and is a member of the Society of Industrial Artists and Designers (MSIAD). Before returning to Glastonbury he was Director of Art at the Portsmouth Grammar School. His work has been widely published, with five of his works recently being selected for the Royal West Academy's Open Exhibitions 156 and 158 and the Open Photography 2 Exhibition.

Brought up in Glastonbury and having initially studied sculpture at Somerset College of Art, Philip Tonkyn later became well known as an air-brush artist and illustrator of numerous book, magazine and record covers. He now specialises in photography, which he uses to create numinous glimpses of a magical Otherworld, where matter and spirit meld in the marriage of landscape and light. Merging up to twenty-one photographs into large composite views, he recreates a magical moment - of necessity one of great stillness, for only when the world ‘holds its breath’ can the component photographs be taken. At these moments it seems that the world is transfigured with beauty and a deeper being is found.

In the Simulacra Series, sections of photographs are reflected, creating the appearance of ‘spirit’ forms, originating both from their nature and location and from the projected psyche of the viewer. The pictures are portraits of the Earth Spirit. It is notable that symmetry is characteristic of sacred art and iconography throughout the world, and that there is indeed much magic in mirrors.