Juan Cristóbal Newberry Retana (known as Christopher Cristóbal Newberry) was born in Mexico City on 15.11.51 – a palindrome. Speculatively, this may be one reason he has been fascinated by symmetry, repetitiveness, cycles, change, progression.
He attended 11 different schools in Mexico and the USA before enrolling at the Universidad Ibero Americana where he read Communication Science.
In early 1976 he came to Europe on a one-way air ticket. He worked and hitchhiked for several months before getting a ride from Paris to London. He has lived in Britain ever since.
He has directed documentaries and educational television programmes for Mexican and British television, including BBC Education. He has worked as a professional photographer since 1985, mostly in the third sector and for charities. His pictures have appeared in The Guardian and other national and local newspapers. He is author of two books on architecture and history (Look Up! Winchester and Salisbury.
In 2005 he has shifted his artistic interests from the factual to the verisimilar. He has come to regard himself as an image creator: using the camera to take images from reality and transforming them into new, verisimilar images (based on reality, but not reality). He invites the viewer to reflect on the matter of what truth is or isn't. (see his essay, "True Colours" through a link on his webpage, www.christophernewberry.com.
