Oh Toads

I was delighted to collaborate with Cecilia Bullo on making her new artwork, “Oh Toads of the river, grieve. Oh Toads of the wetlands, Lament for me. Oh Land, grieve for me. 2023/24”.

It was an intense shoot, not least because she had approximately 18.5 kilos of jesmenite sculptures of toads perched on her airways throughout. I first met Cecilia by chance when I saw her show Being Haunted by the Breezes, Now How Will You Exist? at the Royal Hibernian Academy. I was very taken with the horde of toad sculptures all facing into a corner of the dimly-lit gallery, and was intrigued when I saw a note on the wall saying that they were available to buy. When I asked about this at the reception desk downstairs they told me I could just take whichever ones I wanted from the exhibit. I went back upstairs, announced to the several people watching that I’d been given permission to remove some toads and made my way towards the exit. A figure came out the darkness, wreathed in smiles. This was Cecilia. She was delighted I liked her toads and informed me they were made from ‘Jesmenite, toad DNA and spells”. “What kind of spells?” I asked.

“Good ones” she replied.

This work is part of Distinct, an exhibition in Project Arts Centre curated by Alan James Burns which explores the climate crisis through the perspective of disability. From the exhibition notes: “Cecilia Bullo presents a large-scale photographic work that reformulates cast sculptures of toads as a wearable assemblage on her body, exploring material cultures relating to rituals of healing and transformation through mythological, archaeological, feminist and ecological lenses.”

Artwork by Cecilia Bullo.
Curatorial direction by AlanJames Burns.
Production support by Marie Farrington.
Photography by Conor Horgan.
Photographic assistance by Sara Pirani
Makeup by Christopher Mc Cormack.

The exhibition runs until April 20th in Project Arts Centre, Dublin.

Thanks to Leanne Sullivan for the gallery photo of me with Cecilia and my intern Sara Pirani, who assisted on the shoot.

I made this portrait of one of Cecilia’s toads in my studio. Apparently she’s called Lucille.

Michael by me, me by Michael

Michael Snoek and his wife Dorothee have been family friends since I was a small boy. He was working as a geophysicist in Hamburg when I passed through as a teenage runaway, and he was kind enough to get me a life-changing job with the Max Planck Institut that took me off to live and work in Greece and Morocco as a geo-electrical surveyor. Some years later they moved to Ireland and Michael became very involved with photography and being one of the three founders of the Kamera 8 gallery in Wexford. He’s just launched his fantastic new site, link here.

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Much like myself, Michael is not half as stern as he sometimes seems in photographs.

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Michael Snoek, photographed at home in Wexford, July 2020.

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I think I was about nine when Michael took this picture of me.

You can see more of my portraits of friends and family here.

The Man with the Moving House

This is my portrait of musician Breanndán O' Beaglaoich, which was taken as part of a series of portraits of artists-in-residence at the Irish Cultural Centre, Paris. He’s featured in an upcoming RTE documentary 'The Man with the Moving House’, which documents Begley’s fifteen year battle with Kerry County Council to build a small traditional home in his ancestral village on the Dingle Peninsula. The film airs on Thursday, 25th August at 10.15pm on RTÉ ONE, and you can see more of my en résidence portraits here.

Jonathan

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Jonathan Philbin Bowman ( 1969-2000) photographed for Harpers & Queen magazine, mid 90’s.

My friend Jonathan Philbin Bowman, journalist and broadcaster, who died on this day twenty-two years ago.

He was such great company - precocious, quick-witted, argumentative, hilarious and utterly original. I’ve never met anyone quite like him, and still miss him a lot.

You can hear his voice in this beautiful, moving tribute by Roger Doyle, who took an answering machine message Jonathan had left him and set it to music.

Coat-Hanger Kisses

The portrait was made for a profile in Harpers & Queen magazine written by Sean O’Hagen, and you can see a print of it in the Little Museum of Dublin’s collection.

IVANA

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My photograph of Ivana Bacik on the campaign trail.

I’ve just voted for Ivana Bacik in the Dublin Bay South by-election, and if you have a vote in the constituency please use it to help elect her. She’s a courageous, principled and progressive politician, and we need more people like her in the Dáil.

The Master

Jim Butler of Inspirational Arts is a master printer, ally to legions of artists and photographers and an all-around great guy.

No T Like a Joe T

These are my portraits of Joe Dolan from the 90's, and comedian Justine Stafford has just made one into a t-shirt with all proceeds going to the Irish Hospice Foundation. You can get one here.

The words making up the image spell “ No show like a Joe show”