Upcoming Exhibitions

I am really happy to announce that my six images that are the body of work Place will be part of the PhotoIreland Festival’s 2013 main exhibition New Irish Works this July. Later, in November of this year, PhotoIreland will be traveling to Paris & taking a stand at Paris Photo. New Irish Works, a book on contemporary Irish photography, will accompany the PhotoIreland Festival containing the work of the artists in the main exhibition. 

A Fund:It campaign has been launched to help produce a free catalogue for the festival. There are lots of rewards for helping to support the campaign, including copies of the book I mentioned above. All the information can be found here, on the Fund:It page.

This year for the first time the PhotoIreland Festival has expanded to Cork & Limerick, as well as Dublin. I will  be showing as part of the Limerick show at Ormston House. 

 Untitled [chh] © Roseanne Lynch 2013

Untitled [eln] © Roseanne Lynch 2013

Memories of Paris

Reviewing Prints from Paris in my Studio (© Roseanne Lynch)

In March of last year I won the first Alliance Francaise Photography Award. Part of the prize was a 2 week stay at the Centre Culturel Irlandais in Paris. I decided to be there during Paris Photo back in November, and to put the prize money towards the 3 day Lens Culture Portfolio reviews.

I have put off writing this blog as I really didn’t know what words to use – and on my return to real life it took time to digest the experience. I underestimated the power of two weeks alone with my artist self, - no domestics, no responsibilities to others, just me, artist me.

The portfolio reviews were intense, encouraging and exhausting. You had up to 5 x 20minute reviews each day, a bit like speed dating without the humour (I imagine!) I was told that my work is very Czech avant garde.

Paris Photo, at Grand Palais, was 3 days surrounded by photography. I saw so much work originating in 5”x4” film, negatives scanned and printed huge, and lots of really interesting non lens based work that challenged the bounderies of what photography is, or can be.

Having spent the previous 3 days in the company of the same group of reviewees, who all had free passes to the first day of Paris photo, I was swanning about saying hello to every second person. It was like being on Patrick Street on a Saturday, stopping for coffee breaks with fellow survivors!

I also made a small series of photos while I was in Paris using my Rolleicord, so when I got home I had the pleasure of processing 14 rolls of film, and days and days in the darkroom printing. The bliss of Paris kept alive.

Yesterday I was at a talk in the Glucksman Gallery UCC, by artist Nick Miller, and he was talking about the experience of painting. He described feeling truly alive when making his art. That is what Paris felt like. Two weeks of being fully alive. And that feeling lasts into the darkroom, and into the studio where I sit looking at the images lined up on the shelf and swim in them a while.

Photos taken at the Musée de la Sculpture en Plein Air

Marino di Teana (1920-), Structure architecturale, 1973 © Roseanne Lynch

Photos taken at the Library of the Centre Culturel Irlandais, Paris © Roseanne Lynch

Photos taken at the Université de Paris © Roseanne Lynch

It has been a busy few months since I won the Alliance Francaise Photography Award back in April. This morning I board a plane headed for Paris to spend 2 weeks on a residency at the Centre Culturel Irlandais that was part of that award. I am looking forward to exploring Paris and being inspired. It will be wonderful to have the next 2 weeks dedicated to focusing on my work. I also plan on visiting Paris Photo and taking part in the LensCulture FotoFest Portfolio Reviews. I'm sure I'll return with many wonderful stories of my adventures.

Centre Culturel Irlandais, Paris

Belfast Photo Festival - Part 2

Detonating Rough Gound at the Ormeau Baths Gallery, Sophie Ristelhuber
(Belfast Photo Festival)

Detonating Rough Gound at the Ormeau Baths Gallery, Paul Seawright
(Belfast Photo Festival)

I had planned to leave Belfast on Saturday to drive home to Cork, stopping for the night in Dublin, as I was not sure the borrowed (and brilliant) Skoda Estate which had brought me and my work up would be able to make the journey home in one go. However I was persuaded to stay by a merry band of adventurers, led by Peggy Sue Amison (Curator of the Sirius Arts Centre in Cobh). We headed off first to see Detonating Rough Ground, Paul Seawright & Sophie Ristelhueber’s show at Ormeau Baths Gallery, engaging with the memory of conflict. There I stood up close to the work, and swam in the expanses of grey & the beautiful gentle mid tones of Paul’s images.

Glory Trip 197 from Full Spectrum Dominance by Simon Norfolk (Michael Hoppen Gallery)

A restaurant next to the Kabul municipal bus garage by Simon Norfolk from 'Burke and Norfolk'
(NY Times Lens Blog)

Then we moved on to Simon Norfolk’s work. Simon gave two really interesting and insightful talks about two different bodies of work. He launched his book ‘Burke and Norfolk,’ which is also an exhibition recently seen at Tate Modern. The body of work is of photographs taken in Afghanistan recently presented alongside photographs taken in Afghanistan in the 19th century by Irish photographer, John Burke. I enjoyed hearing Simon talk about the story of John Burke and what was involved for him in making the photographs in the late 1800s. Simon is also showing Full Spectrum Dominance, a series of beautifully presented large format colour images of military rocket and missile launches in America. His artist’s talk was another entertaining and informative event, about the experience of making the work, and his facination around the events he witnessed. He has the rare and beautiful ability of sharing his enthusism for history, life and photography.

Simon Norfolk's talk at Belfast Photo Festival

The evening ended with dinner at The Galley, on board a perfectly positioned barge, with the hugely inclusive and generous Peggy and a number of new friends. (Incidentally the Galley is run by Belfast Exposed Event Managers Brown & Bri.) Among the group were the festival director Michael Weir, artists Elliot Ross, Emmanuelle Waeckerle, Simon Burch, Simon Norfolk, Belfast exposed director Pauline Hadaway & Paul Durcan editor of Source magazine. And I was thrilled to reconnect with Nora Hickey, the Director of the Mermaid Arts Centre who I had worked with previously at Glucksman Art Gallery. I want to thank them all for a wonderful evening!

The Belfast Photo Festival is one to watch. The 25 year old (yes really!) director Michael Weir and his team of enthusiastic volunteers have put together a wonderful programme of events and it feels like a well oiled machine rather than an event in its infancy. I wish them heartfelt congratulations and good wishes for continued success with this wonderful biennial photographic festival that I am so delighted to be a part of. I also want to thank the coordinator of the Queen Street Studios Gallery Brendan O'Neill for all his help and support in bringing my work to the festival.

The Belfast Photo Festival continues until 14th August at locations across the city and Document continues until 27th August at Queen Street Studios Gallery, Belfast.

Belfast Photo Festival 2011 - Part 1

Opening of Document at the Queen Street Studio Gallery at the Belfast Photo Festival

I had a wonderful time last weekend at the opening weekend of the Belfast Photography Festival. I found the whole event welcoming, interesting and inspiring. I met lots of great people, saw beautiful work and had lots of fun. It was a long, full weekend so I've decided to tell the story in two parts.

It began for me with the opening of my exhibition Document and my artist's talk at the Queen Street Studio Gallery on Thursday 4th. It was the opening night of the festival and a number of exhibitions opened across the city. I want to thank everyone who came despite the torrential rain, I really appreciated the welcoming audience. Brendan O'Neill, the co-ordinator of Queen Street Studios Gallery introduced my artist talk and after I spoke I answered some very interesting questions.

Document at the Queen Street Studios, Belfast Photo Festival

One question addressed the idea of the work as an object in the space - as my work is not presented as a traditional photograph with a window mount in a frame - and asked how this aligns itself more to the presentation of a painting or sculptural work. The answer is that I do see the space as an integral element in the reading of my work, and I was very happy with the gallery space for that reason. The Queen Street Gallery reminded me a bit of the Chelsea galleries in New York. You enter an unobtrusive door and climb the stairs which opens into a bright white wooden floored space. My work sits happily there. The metal prints sit opposite a wall of windows so the light emphasised the idea of the tones in the print being affected by where you position yourself as the viewer.

Animal (25), 2007 by Elliot Ross

Also opening the same night was Elliot Ross's exhibition Animal which happened to be in the same building. So I nipped downstairs to introduce myself and really enjoyed his work, his humour, and the chocolate biscuits on offer! His work is a look at what the animal looking out at you from the page might have been feeling and how we as animals project our human emotions into the encounter with this other animal. He also launched his book of the same name at the festival.

Attention Seekers by Miriam O'Connor

Miriam O'Connor in conversation with Matt Packer

Later that evening was a very busy launch party. I was thrilled to meet Paul Seawright, Donovan Wylie and a number of other lecturers from the that MFA at University of Ulster at my show and we all seemed to be doing the rounds of openings, artist talks and book launches throughout the weekend. Another of the openings I got to was Miriam O'Connor’s exhibition Attention Seekers at The Third Space Gallery. I really enjoyed seeing the work, which is a look at inbetween spaces and inbetween moments, beautiful playful responses to everyday scenes. On Friday I attended an event where the Miriam was ‘in conversation’ with Matt Packer, curator of the Glucksman Art Gallery.

...To Be Continued