Limited Edition PrintBlack and white negative film, printed by hand on fibre base paper (selenium toned for archival permanence)
Limited Edition Print Black and white negative film, printed by hand on fibre base paper (selenium toned for archival permanence)
Limited Edition Print Digital image, printed on fine art inkjet photo paper
Introduction to The Beach, Day
"This body of work is a collection of photographs inspired by the ever changing County Wexford coastline and it has taken me nearly a year to complete, in the sense that I set myself a deadline to finish shooting. The collection is an engagement with my sense of place.
It is, unusually for me, a series of landscapes only; the images are about texture and pattern and mood; by strong contrasts between light and dark and bold contrasts affecting a whole composition. I derive great satisfaction looking into the light where relief and energy and vibrancy are found.
The Beach, Day is about my desire to unite "eye, head and heart" in my home county; to make sense of my desire to return to the place that formed me. It is an exploration of the deeper emotional resonances of a landscape that is both fixed and evolving, changing and eternal.
This project is not documentary but the images were made along the entire rocky shoreline, the white sandy coves and the dramatic seascapes of the Wexford coast."
I am suspicious of words because, unlike when I'm making photographs, I know in my bones that I am not putting my heart on my sleeve. I wrote the previous lines about these photographs and then it dawned on me that, as usual, I was hiding something..... so then I wrote the following:
This is photography in the first person singular. Through it you are looking through my eyes.
But the last sense any photographer should use when making a picture is their sense of sight. It really doesn't matter what the external conditions are because when I want to make pictures, it all comes from within.
I like to hunt for images but I have to be ready, in the zone. I decide on a location, pack up my paraphernalia and head off to meet the world. I use all of my senses. I am in awe of this splendid place. But this premise is not entirely correct. While it is a fact that I head off to meet the world, it is not the world I bring back with me. I return with 'my' world.
Photography is the most deceptively surreal art form. I hope that you'll let yourself be carried into this world for a short time and allow yourself to participate in a landscape created by whatever it was I was feeling at that time. Head off to that framed, edited, selected, precise, receding, fleeting moment when my head, heart and eye combined.
It has been said that every photograph is a fact and each photograph is a lie. How can I say that one stolen fraction of a second is an adequate definition of a thing? Why would I even try?
The best I can do is say that my thievery is of a 'Robin Hood' nature.....I steal from the rich tapestry of our place and give the photographs to the, hopefully not so, poor viewers for their consumption and criticism.
This place, my home, still has its unspoiled, and wild, and occasionally well managed beach areas. I can't help thinking that had the economic nightmare of boom continued that it would now be a different story. But, despite the gouging, an ancient heart still beats.
This book is dedicated to my little boy Olly. It's such a long way from Karekare to Curracloe.
"Grant has a powerful point to make that hits you when you least expect it" BBC
I have exhibited widely throughout Ireland and internationally and have had several books of photographs published.
Name
Email
Subject
Message
Padraig Grant
C/O The Rowe St Gallery,
2 Rowe Street Lower
Wexford, Ireland
Skype: padraig.david.grant
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