Donal Sheehan

b. 1963, Ireland

Photographing the shape of the succumbed.
Drawn to that moment where a truth resides.

Feeling the weight, the violence, the personal collapse of one’s world, where will, social veneer, physical control slip through ones fingertips. The moment the fight is lost. Those physical articulations, representing the emotional state of an individual and after so many individuals a people are seen.

Finding in the vein of history a people that society superficially scrapes from the surface with no thought to the cause and inner decay they represent. The semiotic residue of successful industrialisation, collateral damage, cultured acceptance. As such, they become a vanguard in the demise of care and consideration which, it seems, are the cornerstones of a healthy democracy.

Importance in scale, life size prints. In looking at the people within the prints, a force with which they live, occupies the frame, their presence as an equal. The silver gelatin, selenium-toned print giving them a longevity surpassing the society that has bred them. A gift for the theft of their moment. ‘Who we have been, who we are, who we wish to be.’

(Text: reading the city catalogue, 2009)