LOUISAHHH!!!

These are my portraits of LOUISAHHH!!!, the queen of French industrial techno. She's just announced her first album, The Practice of Freedom, which is available to pre-order here:

Cecilia Danell

Painter Cecilia Danell, photographed at the Centre Culturel Irlandais, Paris.

Congratulations to Cecilia Danell, who has been awarded the ESB Keating Award and Silver Medal for an Outstanding Art Work at this year’s RHA Annual exhibition. She’s also shortlisted for the RCSI Art Award, which will be announced in December. This image is an out-take from a portrait I was commissioned to make by the Centre Culturel Irlandais in Paris, which will be part of a semi-permanent exhibition of 18 portraits of artists-in-residence there from later this month. I’m really looking forward to seeing them up on the walls.

CECILIA DANELL - IN THE BIRCH PLANTATION. Oil and acrylics on canvas, 95 x 130 cm

CECILIA DANELL - IN THE BIRCH PLANTATION. Oil and acrylics on canvas, 95 x 130 cm

You can see more of my portraits of artists in this gallery .

Amelia and The Bloods

My friend Amelia Stein is one of Ireland’s best photographers, and I did a portrait of her recently to mark the occasion of her new exhibition “The Bloods” being shown in the newly reopened Butler Gallery in Kilkenny.

With a slight homage to Mapplethorpe

With a slight homage to Mapplethorpe

This is Amelia’s preferred image, which I can understand because she looks like such a boss.

This is Amelia’s preferred image, which I can understand because she looks like such a boss.

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The show is a series of portraits of members of the Defence Forces from the 3 Inf Bn, known as The Bloods, based in James Stephens Barracks, Kilkenny. It’s great work, and you can book (free) tickets here.

There are more of my portraits of artists in this gallery.

About Beauty

I first met conceptual artist Dorothy Cross while training at a dive centre in Connemara. I knew and liked her work, which included many pieces inspired by sea creatures or made with found objects from the sea. 

A couple of years later I approached her about making a film and she quite unexpectedly invited me to accompany her on a trip to make work about native shark-callers on New Ireland, a small island off Papua New Guinea that is one of the last true wildernesses left on Earth.

(click image for caption)

It was a tough shoot, not least because a capsized canoe ruined one camera and I had to finish the shoot with Dorothy’s one, which she was also using to make work. Eventually a shark was caught, and after a very moving traditional ceremony it was divided among the villagers on the beach.

(click image for caption)

Kids in Kontu

You can hear a Lyric fm interview I did about the film here.

Annaghmakerrig People

Some of the great people I’ve met in Annaghmakerrig over the years.

Robbie McDonald, who will be leaving next January after ten years as director of the Tyrone Guthrie Centre at Annaghmakerrig. The post is currently being advertised

Dancer and choreographer Emma O’Kane

Emma O’Kane in action

Native American playwright Larissa Fasthorse with her husband, sculptor Edd Hogan

Author Diana Souhami

Sheila Pratschke, the Centre’s second director

There are more photographs of Annaghmakerrig here, as well as some more artists here, writers here and performers here.

Annaghmakerrig

I’m staying at the Tyrone Guthrie centre in Annaghmakerrig, getting some writing done. It’s a fantastic place, which I wrote about for The Dubliner magazine a few years ago - you can read the article here.

I found this couch yesterday on a walk near the centre, and one of the artists sat in for the picture.

The big house

The big house

Clare Langan in Paris

Clare Langan photographed in Paris, May 2018.

Clare Langan photographed in Paris, May 2018.

Video artist Clare Langan is a national treasure, and I was very glad to get an opportunity to photograph her in Paris last year. I’d already seen her piece that’s currently in the Moving Woman show at La Galerie Danysz, but I went to see it again on Saturday. It’s so beautiful.

Galerie Danysz

Galerie Danysz

You can see other portraits of artists in this recently updated gallery.