Background information
"The partly autobiographical photographs by Irish photographer Patrick HOGAN present an intimate view of his everyday encounters and surroundings in a remote area of County Tipperary where he has lived for the past two years. His compelling portraits, dense still lives, brooding interiors and pensive landscapes convey a sense of uncertain anticipation and quiet foreboding. Though modest and focused in geographical scope. His powerful images explore expansive existential themes of love, fragility, decay and loss. In making this work, Patrick HOGAN lets go of any traditional notions of photographic documentation and narrative. Working instead with an intuitive openness and sensitivity to the world around him, his work unfolds in direct response to his ongoing encounters with the people and the landscapes of his locality. Rather than attempting to offer some notion of ‘truth’ or ‘reality’ about a particular place or person, Hogan uses the camera as a tool to explore the uncertainties and ambivalence of photographic representation.
At the heart of the work is a questioning of whether it is possible to develop a meaningful visual understanding of his intimate and immediate world." (© Gallery of phtography, 2012)
Book reviews, content
“‘Still’.... perceives moments at which the sense of being is formed through the act of seeing, and it knows and accepts that these moments will appear incoherent, even broken.” (© Colin Graham, NUI Maynooth)
"The photo volume 'Still' is a splendid and intriguing investigation of personal relationships. As the title implies, quiet and intimate moments are captured while creating a place that can best be described as ambivalence. 'Still' has an interesting cadence and inclusion of difficult to read interior plates, at times there is the faintest hint of a photographic image and others on the extreme of darkness, both bordering on illegibility that beguiles me." (© Douglas Stockdale)
"At some stage over the past two years or so, something happened to photobook making. Things seem to have become considerably more complex, resulting in a flurry of books that have moved way beyond the simple gallery-show-on-paper format.
Photographers started to mix colour with black and white, say, or combined seemingly different types of images; images started to move across the spreads - and nobody felt compelled to talk about it. Instead, the medium itself (meaning its makers and viewers)
seems to have just leapt to a more complex level, with seemingly endless possibilities opening up. Another case in point is provided by the (self-published) photo volume 'Still' by Patrick HOGAN.
It is much harder to describe what the book might be about than it is to experience it, looking at the succession of images. The pre-dominant atmosphere in 'Still' is one of stillness and fragility, of beauty and loss. Themes recur, as do images of the same people or things, even a colour (red). Images are repeated, they occasionally become mere shadows of themselves, or they are blurry or grainy. The book clearly presents a very specific world, without ever being obviously specific. It’s all in the shadows.
Ultimately, 'Still' shows what photography can do when it is given proper treatment. All that talk of photography being “over” or “dead” seems childish (at best) when seen in the light of books like this one. As a matter of fact, photography is not only not over, we’re actually just at the beginning of a deeper understanding of what images can do when they are made to interact with each other. And with photobooks now being a medium that is easily available to anyone interested in making one, I am sure we will see more and more examples of photographic story telling that go way beyond the simple ideas so many people are still attached to. - Highly recommended." (© Joerg Colberg, in: Conscientious, 2012)
Additional information
For the photo series & book 'Still', Patrick HOGAN has got the Gallery of Photography’s Artist’s Award 2012, Ireland’s leading award for contemporary photography.
About Irish photographer, Patrick HOGAN
Photo books by Patrick HOGAN
- Ed(s)/Author(s)
- Colin Graham
- Format
- Linen bound HC (no dust jacket, as issued), 19.5 x 25 x 1,5 cm., 96 pp., 71 color ills., text language: English (with German / French translation, Ltd. to 500 numbered copies