Photo exhibition debuts ahead of charity auction

A series of photographic portraits of high-profile artists have gone on display before they are auctioned to raise funds for a charity supporting homeless people.

One Step Closer by Marco Sanges is being exhibited for the first time at the Dimbola Museum in Freshwater, Isle of Wight.

Bob Geldof, Elizabeth McGovern, Jeremy Irons, Brian Cox, Gyles Brandreth and Clare Balding are among those who posed for close-ups.

Funds raised from the auction will go to Under One Sky, a London-based not-for-profit charity set up to support the homeless community.

The Dimbola was once the home of celebrated Victorian photographer Julia Margaret Cameron.

It is now a museum owned and run by the Julia Margaret Cameron Trust charity, with galleries dedicated to her life and work.

It also showcases contemporary exhibitions from photographers around the world.

Mr Sanges said creating the project was a “deeply spiritual experience, comprised of intense emotions that were as contrastingly dark and light as the portraits themselves”.

Always In Motion Ltd, the registered company for One Step Closer, said that after the photographer built a “strong, celebrated reputation of his own”, he decided to “branch out and use his art to give back to the world”.

The initiative is aimed at “reshaping the narrative surrounding homelessness and transforming the lives of those in need”, it added.

Julian Bell, Dimbola’s president, said the results of Mr Sanges’ images were “by turns rapturous, hilarious and scary” and, in every case, “imprinted with the uniqueness of the sitter”.

One Step Closer will be on display alongside photographer Lee Miller’s Style is Strength: Lee Miller’s Wartime Fashion Photography collection, showcasing images she captured during World War II.

The collaborative exhibit will run from Sunday until 18 May and Mr Sanges’ portraits will be auctioned later that month.