Victor Sloan: Marking the North
Impressions Gallery, York, England.
24 March - 28 April 1990
Walk X, Lurgan, silver gelatin print, toners and watercolours, 45.5cms x 46cms, 1985 ©Victor Sloan
This is the first extensive exhibition on the work of one of Ireland’s leading photographic artists,Victor Sloan. A former painter, Sloan now works on 35mm negatives, scraping out part of an image and using paint and ink directly onto the negative. When the negative has been printed-up, he uses toners and watercolours in order to highlight and heighten aspects of the final printed image.
The exhibition takes work from the different series he has been working on over recent years, like ‘Birches’ and ‘The Walk, the Platform and the Field’. The work has developed into an extensive investigation into Protestant culture and politics, and his own position in this community. This work is also a challenge to our media coverage of Northern Ireland with its documentary recording of the ‘troubles’.
Victor Sloan’s most recent large scale work, the series ‘Walls’ focuses on the town of Derry with the march on the 12 July celebrating the Battle of the Boyne, but with the Derry walls always dominating the image. This work was produced in 1989 at the same time as the momentous events started to take place in Eastern Europe. These events are taking Sloan’s work beyond the Irish context into a wider European perspective.
In conjunction with the Dublin publishers OPEN AIR, Impressions is publishing a book on Victor Sloan’s work written by Brian McAvera, and is available at £8.95. Buy Publication
IMPRESSIONS TOURING EXHIBITION
