ArtHouse Jersey opens 2026 with Minimal Works, a solo exhibition by Jersey photographer Connor Daly. As the first exhibition of the year in the arts charity’s Capital House gallery, the show brings together a series of photographic works, each a study of urban spaces as compositions of colour, material and shape, offering a much-needed pop of colour and visual clarity during the darkest winter months. Many of the photographs were taken in Jersey, and for local audiences there is an added quiet intrigue, look closely and you may begin to recognise familiar sites, transformed beyond their everyday identities.

Developed over six years (2016 to 2022), Minimal Works asks a deceptively simple question: what happens when photography lies by telling the truth? Daly turns his lens toward overlooked and often ignored spaces; car parks, lido pools, tennis courts, walls, and even a crazy golf course, stripping them of context to reveal something unexpectedly profound.

These are not documentary photographs. By isolating fragments of the built environment and removing them from their familiar settings, Daly challenges photography’s claim to objectivity and truth-telling. A patch of astroturf becomes an exploration of colour and texture; a tennis court resolves into a precise geometric composition; a car park hints at countless unseen human narratives that briefly occupied its boundaries.

The artist describes the series as ‘images of obstruction, yet the works function more like conceptual windows, inviting viewers to reconsider how they see the constructed world around them. Drawing on influences from 20th-century abstract and constructivist movements, Daly’s compositions feel both familiar and mysteriously detached, balancing precision with ambiguity.

What defines Minimal Works is its deliberate emptiness. There are no people, no natural landscapes, and no overt emotional cues. This apparent neutrality becomes the work’s quiet provocation. In their bright, clean aesthetics, the photographs act as mirrors, reflecting our relationship with spaces we inhabit daily but rarely stop to truly notice.

Although the series concluded in 2022, Daly notes that it retains ‘a lingering feeling of incompleteness’, a fitting condition for work that resists resolution and instead invites sustained looking and reflection.

Connor Daly is a British photographer working between the UK and Jersey. His work has been exhibited internationally and has received several photography awards.

Head of Programme for ArtHouse Jersey, James Tyson, said, “It’s a pleasure to host Connor Daly’s Minimal Works as our first exhibition of 2026. Connor is a photographer who has intrepidly sought to capture spaces both familiar and everyday - road markings, car parks - and see them as if with new eyes as spaces vivid to behold. 

Artist Connor Daly, said, “It’s great to see my series ‘Minimal Works’ exhibited in such a beautiful environment, after many years of collecting digital dust. I’ve been looking, re-looking, thinking and re-thinking about this large body of work for almost ten years. In the time since I started the series, my practice has evolved significantly and I have had many life changing experiences in photography, many of which I owe to this series as it has brought me in contact with a wide range of characters and organisations who have assisted me in producing new work. In this instance, I would like to personally thank the wonderful team at ArtHouse Jersey, whose support cannot be quantified in words, but who know how deeply I appreciate them for being champions of my work, as well as the wider artistic community in Jersey.”