Paul Barbera finds Where They Create - Jebila Wolfe-Okongwu

The reason why Jeb is an important part of my project is not only because he is an old mate from art school or that I admire his work, but because it is in his house/studio in Rome, that I started to build the website for Where They Create.

Jeb had asked me to shoot his studio for his own website, and I realised that I wanted to collate together a series of photos of all the past studios that I had shot. Talking the idea over with Jeb and another visiting Aussie friend, Michael Nicolaci, (who helped me with the name of the website) confirmed that I was on the right track.

After following Jeb’s work over the last 15 years, in which he gradually embraced his African heritage, I found that photographing his studio was a very natural and organic process, which gave me satisfaction that was different to my work as a commercial and interior photographer. It made me want to find more studios in which I would photograph behind those closed doors...