DOMINIC TURNER (Dublin, Ireland)
Biography:
I am a photographic artist and master photographic printer based in Dublin, Ireland. In 2008, I set up a specialist archival digital print studio called Exhibit A to service the needs of Artists in Ireland. I also co-run a small photobook publishing company called Blink Editions who have produced 3 books to date.
As an artist working in the medium of photography my work is rooted in exploration of an alternative way of seeing, both visually and intellectually, that conforms more to my emotional and philosophical response to the world around me than any attempt to document the world as it is.
Artist Statement:
False Friends
“The absurd is the essential concept and the first truth.”
― Albert Camus
Like most people, I am in search of meaning and direction in an absurd world, even though this act in itself is plainly absurd. So often in life, we skate upon the thinnest of ice but merely scratch the surface.
The moment of capture is where my own reason and logic wrestle with contradiction and superstition. Who or what are we to trust? Regardless, the rewards for digging deeper are immeasurable. With these vignettes of discovery, I quietly try to address the human condition.
Practice Statement: How does photographing on film (or using your material photographic process of predilection) inform your artistic practice?
I have used film since I was 10 years old when my mother first showed me how to process film in her home darkroom/utility room. At the time it seemed like pure magic and in the intervening years, it still hasn’t lost any of its lustre. What attracts me most to film as an artist is its ability to convey ‘feeling’, a quality that is very important for all my work. I would liken the qualities of film to the Japanese aesthetic concept of wabi-sabi, in which true beauty is described as imperfect, as the world is. It would seem to me more appropriate to use an imperfect medium to reflect the world back onto itself. But film is just one part of a process of craft that doesn’t take any shortcuts or make anything easy from capture right the way through to the final print. While this can be extremely time consuming, it allows me so many more opportunities along the way to put something of myself into the final print.
IG @snapscrackle
