Joe Duggan

The choice of subject matter in Joe Duggans work is always changing but his vision is so strong that his signature always comes across. The construction of his work is classical. He uses traditional dynamics of scene painting in his composition, but even though the work is so carefully posed it curiously holds a surprising feeling of the accidental. At the present moment he has moved away from his often densely populated imagery, to scenes, which whilst devoid of actual bodies, are littered instead with the remnants of a human presence, whose activities remain unclear. His style was made famous by it’s imposing scale and the frightening undertone of banality and self delusion that has us all questioning our life choices whilst mentally scanning our location for the nearest exit points (just in case). That fear is made worse of course when we realise that it starts and ends with ourselves, and there is no where you can run from that.

Using emotive language such as this one might assume that Duggan’s art uses shock tactics to tell it’s story. Quite the opposite. The scenes are benign in their domestic mundanity. We have to look twice to see the real picture. Perhaps this is why the scale of these photographs must be so large. We have to search in a pathological sense for the clues to the meanings held in the images, like police arriving at a functioning domestic abuse scene, the true stories in the fabric of each symbol are little more than ghosts but these are what we need to detect see the bigger picture. This is what is clever about the work; he gives us symbols but no key and in doing so makes us realise (as in life), that although we are all reading the same story, our interpretations can be entirely individual, over dubbed with our own symbolism of personal experience, and don’t necessarily point to an answer. The ambiguity of symbols is readily over looked as they are both read and projected so instantly as to be taken for granted. Duggan arrests our process in the act of assuming we have absorbed the information on display correctly and in doing so, makes his point; that we don’t know what things mean, we don’t even know IF things mean, we simply reach for comfortable options in order to make our lives that little bit easier.

Duggan doesn’t berate us for wanting soft options in our lives, for wanting to feel safe. He just wants to remind us that the wolves are never far from the door. Did you ever notice how big Grandma’s teeth are?

JOSH KNOWLES 2004

Born Limerick, Ireland, 1973

Education
2002: Royal College of Art, London, England, M.A. Fine Art Photography
2000: University of Central England, Birmingham, England, BA(Hons) Visual Communciations

Solo Exhibitions
2007: ‘The family man’, Limerick City Art Gallery, Limerick, Ireland
2005: ‘Joe Duggan’, extraspazio, Rome, Italy — ‘Babylon’, Koraalberg Gallery, Antwerp, Belgium
2003: ‘NeverEver’, Hirschl Contemporary Art, London, UK
2002: ‘Photographs By Joe Duggan’, SENKO Gallery, Viborg, Denmark — ‘PERIOD’(in association with Art Junky) EC Café, London, UK
Group Exhibitions
2006: ‘Failure’, Kilkenny Festival of Art(KAT) , Ireland — ‘Monstrous Tales’, APT Gallery, London, UK
2005: ‘Foto Antwerpen’, Koraalberg Gallery, Antwerp, Belgium — ‘quasi niente’, extraspazio, Rome Belgium
2004: ‘Short Stories’ Museum of Photography, Antwerp, Belgium — ‘Unairdefamille’, Centre de Photographic, Toulouse, France
2003: ‘Public Image’, MOCA, Washington D.C., USA — ‘London Calling’, Con/temporary, Berlin, Germany — ‘Photography’, Koraalberg Gallery, Antwerp, Belgium — ‘Acardia’ Laurent Delaye Gallery, London, UK
2002: ‘EVIDENCE’ Essor Gallery project space, London, UK — THE GOVERNMENT ART COLLECTION, London, UK — Royal Hibernian Academy Annual Exhibition, Dublin, Ireland
2001: ‘FLIP FLOP’, Ecole Regionaledes Beaux Arts de Nantes, France
2000: ‘New Blood’, Atlantis Gallery, london, UK

Collections (selected)
Limerick City Gallery of Art permanent collection
Ernst & Young

Awards
2007: Shorted listed for AIB Bank Award
2002: British Council travel Assistance
2000: Individual Arts Grant, Limerick County Council, Ireland

Reviews/ Publications
Wonderland magazine — The Irish Times — Failure exhibition catalogue — Magill Magazine — The Irish Times — The Limerick Leader — Irish Arts Review — Dazed&Confused — PhotoMuseum Magazine — i-D Magazine — The Art News Paper — HotShoe — Les Journal des Arts — PLUCK — BerlinerMorgenposten — ArtReview — The Royal Academy magazine — Source — The Irish Post — WHAT’S ON, London