A brief history of ...

The works, which I think are rooted in the surrealist tradition, are the products of a process that began a few years back. It’s funny the way that a chance accident can open a previously unseen door and lead you to a place you’d never expected to go…

Briefly: I'm Irish, no longer that young, and live in County Wexford although I'm originally from Limerick. I studied fine art painting in Limerick many years ago, although after leaving college my attempts create work eventually slowed to a trickle and then stopped: partly because I began working in unrelated but lucrative employment; partly because I felt, after a few abortive attempts at painting, that, for various reasons, it was not the medium for me; and mostly because of increasingly debilitating chronic fatigue brought on by very severe sleep apnoea, something that I still suffer from (although not nearly as badly, thanks to my CPAP machine). The desire to create art was still there, like a phantom limb, and playing with cameras was one way to satisfy the urge. But I was unable to find a mthod of expression which seemed to express what I wanted. Until...

A few years ago, before Covid disrupted the world, I went into the woods by the sea near my house to take a photo of a friend of mine (thanks again, Emma!). I had just bought a large format camera (a battered yet sturdy Cambo) and a box of 4x5 sheet film, and was looking for excuses to try it out. She very patiently stood with her back to me while I fiddled with loupes and knobs and the ancient Kodak lens, shouting instructions about where she should stand. After we were done, I staggered back home weighed down by all my gear. I was pleased to see that, on developing, the images had actually been exposed correctly (I won’t shame myself by admitting how many sheets of film I went through before I stopped getting barely visible, horribly underexposed, out-of-focus, or blurred negatives) but I didn’t like the image, which was unbalanced by a group of trees on one side. As I was holding two of the huge 4x5 negatives (large format is so cool!) in my hands, I put one, reversed, on top of the other and held it up to the light. I was so taken with what I saw that I immediately scanned and edited them until I had created a first version of the image that is now 'a girl walks through the forest'. As with any accidental discovery, it took quite some time to figure out how I wanted to use this exciting new technique that I had stumbled across! It was a steep learning curve: I discovered that making such images requires a huge amount of selection and editing – which I had to figure out largely by myself! – often over a period of several months (see here for the tedious – I mean, technical – details…).

In March of 2020 I became unemployed and unable to travel more than two kilometres from my home due to the restrictions placed on society to combat the Covid-19 virus. For twelve out of the next twenty-four months the hospitality business I worked in was closed entirely, and in the other months it operated with considerably reduced opening times. While this caused a certain amount of stress – like most people, initially I had no idea of the long-term impact the virus would have – it did provide me, without much warning, a huge amount of free time. And so, like many other creative people I know, I threw myself into making art full-time, something I hadn’t been able to do since college. I had just discovered a new technique that fascinated me and now I could explore and develop these ideas as much as I could, with the added benefit of living within walking distance of a forest! The results of all this experimentation are the images on this website … 

As to what they represent – well, I prefer to let the works speak for themselves. I hope you like them. Any feedback - positive or negative - is very welcome. Check out my Instagram page for studies, experiments, and other stuff that doesn't end up here!