Born and bred in Wales, United Kingdom, Segate has always had artistic tendencies but was unable to realise his aspirations, instead working in jobs that held little or no reward. 1990 was a turning point in his life, when, at the age of 21 he had an illness which gave rise to a re-evaluation of the things that really matter, he comments,

  "It's only when you suddenly become aware of life itself that you begin to see just how frail and transient it can be"

says Segate. Indeed it was this event that drove Segate forward with the determination to succeed. Early work was traditionally printed and processed using photographic paper and chemicals. As time went by Segate's use of found textures and his trademark grungy style were no longer being realised through darkroom methods and much time was wasted. He admits this was a very frustrating time "I knew exactly what I wanted to do and how I wanted the image to look, but I was unable to produce satisfactory results and felt compromised". But then came Segate's saviour in the form of computers and software, in particular one piece of software was able to revitalise Segate's vision and was the kick start he required to take his art a stage further. Photoshop v3 and a 486DX 66mHz were his chosen tools at the time followed by a very steep learning curve. But several years on and several versions of Photoshop later Segate continues to push the boundaries producing beautiful thought provoking work. It's interesting to note that once again Segate visits his darkroom and now uses a combination of darkroom and digital techniques to create his unique pieces of art.

I asked Segate who and what inspires him to produce such work. "Inspiration comes from everywhere really but I find I get most excited in places of disuse such as old buildings, churches, old warehouses and places like that. I'm always on the lookout for textures for use in my images and get fired up with the thought of using hi tech equipment like computers to make something look old and distressed, tarnished by time." But what about your subjects, your images predominantly use women, some have questioned why. Segate replies "Most of my work recently has focused on issues surrounding female dominance and her new role in society, as well as her relationships with men, indeed "Words and Bitches" was a close look at how modern women's relationships have changed with men in view of so called "Girl power". Even the fetish calendar, back in 2000, was predominantly a look at fetishism from a dominant female perspective."

I knew of Segate's work several years before I got to know him personally, I have collected much of it, and I can see influences of others in his work, I asked him to elaborate on this. "As artists we all get inspired by others, what's important is not to copy but to use the feeling this inspiration gives you to help you develop something else of your own, that's the key. Much of my development can by linked to photographers like David Penprase, Stu Williamson in the early days and then by Robert Gregory Griffeth and John Santerineross later on and old masters like Bill Brandt. There are many, many others." replies Segate. "Design is very important to me in my work. I realised early on that I wanted more than just an image to look at and to convey my thoughts. I began introducing textual elements into the image, initially in the darkroom, but eventually via digital methods and that's when things really got going" Yes, your use of text and image is something that I find particularly interesting in particular the fact that sometimes your text becomes illegible. "Sometimes it's not what you can read it's what you can't that's important and I find this prospect very exciting and frequently hide or distress text in an image, fragmenting it or merging it into other textual elements." I know for a fact that David Carson is a hero of yours. "Well yes I suppose so. I don't like to call him a hero as such but there's no doubt that he has been and still is a major influence over much that I do. I own a copy of Ray Gun and I quite simply go weak at the knees when I look over his work. Absolutely superb."

  ".. Maybe the make up girl couldn't make it or perhaps one or two of   the models failed to turn up. It was a nightmare, it really was."

Well Roberto I 'd like to ask, what's next? "At the beginning of this year I produced some work based loosely on a celtic fetish theme after a dream that I'd had. I initially produced this work for an article for Practical Photography magazine and it proved very successful in terms of the final images and the public response I received so I have been working on a more thorough representation of my thoughts regarding this dark age, or medieval fetishism." This project proved to be Segate's most challenging yet and he has found it both the best and worst experience of his artist career so far. "Every project I decide to get involved in seems to get bigger and bigger and this project is no exception and at times got so out of hand in terms of the number of people involved that I had to take a long hard look at what I was doing. It got to the point that I was unable to co-ordinate everyone who was supposed to be at a shoot. Maybe the make up girl couldn't make it or perhaps one or two of the models failed to turn up. It was a nightmare, it really was. In the end I decided to cut the number of people involved to a bare minimum, just me, my assistants (John or Steve) and the models. By doing this I found that I could concentrate on what I was trying to achieve instead of worrying about the whole thing." So when will we see the completed work? "I'm planning an exhibition of this work sometime in the autumn, that's if everything goes to plan. I've many long nights of work in front of the computer before that." Have you any plans after this project is complete? "yes, I think I'll just do nothing for a few weeks, but I know that by then I'll have something else in mind, we'll just have to see won't we."

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