My work is a study of the language of photography through still and moving images. I use performance and wit as tools to investigate the boundaries of photographic meaning. Although most of my work features myself as the protagonist, I don't consider them to be self portraits per se, though they can be read that way. I use humour as a tool to disarm the viewer, which I hope evaporates leaving a slow burning psychologically tense afterglow. Weaving fact and fiction, I plunge into the heart of such issues as family experiences and national identities, feminine and masculine roles, and relationships between strangers.
Born in Dublin, I now live in the UK. My work is exhibited widely, most recently at Bohusläns Museum, Sweden, 2017, Serlachius Fine Art Foundation, Finland and Turner Contemporary, Margate, UK, both in 2015 and at Palazzo Strozzi, Florence, Italy in 2014. I was a finalist in the Video section of Celeste Prize in 2012. My work is in the permanent collection of The Museum of Fine Art, Houston, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, The National Media Museum, Bradford and the Wilson Centre for Photography, London. My work is included in several survey publications, including 'The Photograph as Contemporary Art' by Charlotte Cotton, (Thames and Hudson, 2005) 'Vitamin Ph, Survey of International Contemporary Photography,' (Phaidon 2006), 'Auto Focus: The Self-Portrait in Contemporary Photography', by Susan Bright (Thames and Hudson 2010), and Photography and Ireland by Justin Carville, published by Exposures 2012.
Nostalgic, vintage-style snapshots in which the photographer (and sometimes her sister) sit in for each and every family member. With so much photography now shared digitally, the family photo album is quickly becoming a historical oddity.
Mixing performance, self-portraiture and a light conceptual touch (shades of Cindy Sherman?), this series is a clever response to an archive of over 30,000 photographs which capture slices of “ordinary” life in rural Finland.
