When Jaws hit cinemas in 1975, it lodged itself deep in the collective imagination. It was one of the first films that truly got under my skin. To mark its 50th anniversary, I’ve returned to its iconic imagery... not just to pay tribute, but to explore its lingering shadow.
Back in 2018, I reimagined the movie poster in a piece titled You’re Going To Need A Bigger Boat... pixelated and overlaid with Quint’s chilling Indianapolis monologue... that unforgettable moment of stillness in the Orca’s cabin, where the real horror isn’t the shark, but the memory of men in the water, picked off one by one in the dark.
This year, I began by revisiting that work. At first, I referenced the opening lines of Peter Benchley’s Jawsnovel, the passage that set the tone for everything that followed. But as I worked, I kept thinking about the film’s impact far beyond the cinema. Jaws didn’t just frighten audiences... it shifted something deeper. It rewired how generations felt about the sea. It planted fear in the imagination. It had real-world consequences.
So I pivoted. I left behind Benchley’s fiction and fell down a rabbit hole of fact... researching shark encounters recorded since the film’s release in 1975. I compiled 1,247 coastal locations, every one a documented incident from the past fifty years... beaches, bays, rips and quays, some of them familiar from my own travels. The work began to transform. The cinematic horror blurred with lived experience. Suddenly, it wasn’t just about a film anymore... it was something closer, sharper, more real.
What started as a tribute became something else entirely. A reminder that the line between fact and fiction is thinner than we think... and that fictional fear still echoes, quietly, along real coastlines... to the beat of that infamous cello.
This new piece is one of my largest prints to date. I'm releasing it as a limited edition of 50... a nod to the 50 years since Jaws first surfaced.
THE GREAT FISH MOVED SILENTLY
Giclée with Screenprinted Varnish on Canson Rag Photographique 310gsm
Signed, Numbered and Dated in Pencil
Edition of 50
111.4 × 90.2 cm
£2,000 + P&P
Launching 26 June at 4pm (BST)