Artist
Ronan McCall
The Whited Sepulchre
The Whited Sepulchre takes the form of personal diary reconstructed. Images from various parts of the world are amalgamated based on an imagined inner dual narrative so that my personal experiences and motivations are re-imagined through the creation of a cinematic version of the present that could be from any time – that is governed by an overall sensation more than a geographical or temporal framework, that attempts to visually respond to the shape of trauma. Constantly on the verge of revelation but being drawn back to try to understand experiences that were beyond our comprehension. People born into families of intergenerational trauma are themselves often forced to live in a submerged world that runs parallel to other people’s reality. Their real selves become something to be hidden at all costs. Even when presented with evidence to the contrary they cannot accept themselves as having any value. Ireland has been cast under the spell of a fiction invented to mask hundreds of years of deep cultural wounds. The Whited Sepulchre takes a close look at this Irish fiction of self.
Emma O’Brien is an artist with whom we became well acquainted during her participation in PhotoIreland’s Professional Development Programme. We consider this
nomination an organic next step in her progression as a professional artist. Her work The Holding Place considers the politics of motherhood and domestic labour, exposing patriarchal systems still present within home environments.
Patrick O’Byrne is an emerging artist whose practice, though quiet on first sight, lingers and grows louder within, engrossing the viewer in its multi-layered narratives. In I’ll be damned, O’Byrne looks at the history of his father growing up against the backdrop of Catholicism and alcoholism in Ireland, interrogating subjects of masculinity and sexual identity.
Through the stories and histories of Irish women, artist Pauline Rowan collaborates with a small community of people as they continue to care for a convent and garden
site marked for demolition. Under a Vaulted Sky uses photography, the artist’s own performative response, and collage work to talk about land control and concepts of home and belonging.
Ronan McCall is better known for his commercial photographic work, but we feel his personal practice deserves further attention. McCall is a film photographer, processing and printing his own work. He creates indelible imagery of cinematic landscapes and extraordinary portraits, proffering alternative narratives of reality whilst commenting on pertinent issues.
Through playful approaches, Cian Burke investigates the role of imagination in scientific systems and methods of work. His project, I fear that the magic has left this
place, takes a Swedish government manual – titled ‘If Crisis or War Comes’ – as a departure point for meditations on home, the future, threat and protection.