Leeds artist Joe Mawson, 25, will display his highly coloured photographs of his customised detailed toy models of recent disasters at the Stanley & Audrey Burton Gallery in Leeds University's Parkinson Building from April 7 to June 19.

After photographing his scale models of recent tragic historical events, Joe uploads them onto a computer and saturates his digital images with ultra-vivid colour.

The finished pictures, says Joe, pull off the trick of looking fake and true-to-life at the same time.

And that, he believes, draws attention to "society's need to analyse and find meaning" in momentous events, such as the Great Heck train tragedy in which ten people died and countless others were injured.

Joe said his art didn't seek to exploit human tragedy, and his 're-stagings' include only vehicles and landscapes, not representations of victims.

He added: "I'm not trying to recreate the actual disasters themselves. What I'm really aiming for is a recreation of the media photos and images that define events like these in the public consciousness.

"I want to explore how photography is used and how it feeds into people's recollections."
Entrance to the National Lottery-backed exhibition highlighting Joe's work is free.