The 37th Frame exhibit at the Town Hall Theatre, Galway.
Fionán O’Connell's latest photographic exhibition, The 37th Frame, is
currently showing in the Town Hall Theatre Gallery, after being opened by
Primetime's Mark Little last Saturday.
This exhibition makes better use of its space than most. I counted 39 photos
in all, leaving less than half an inch between most of the exhibits. Yet,
the space is pleasantly full and not in any way cluttered.
O'Connell's work is described as 'abstract photography', though I would
hasten to add that it is abstract in the best possible way! Each image gives
the viewer a 'way in', a link with the real or common world.
The photographer's command of colour is almost more akin to a painter's than
that of his own genre. In some of his pieces objects fuse into one another
to throw criss-crossings of reds, blues and yellows around one another in a
fantastic light formation. A violin is photographed from beneath the bridge
and pixilates like a water colour.
There is a great deal of humour in O'Connell's work also - such as the
photograph of the car mirror that captures the vehicle behind it bedecked in
the 'Up the Dubs' scarf, setting modern urban areas into the shadow of the
GAA. In another photograph a lone, long abandoned soccer goal stands dying
on a sandy pitch. I wonder which code O'Connell follows!
There is a particular cleverness to the artist's perspective on material.
Fishing rope, buoys and tackles, lying on the deck of a fishing trawler are
beautifully framed by O'Connell to portray something that more resembles a
hanging carpet piece than the work instruments of a fisherman.
O'Connell's great achievement with this new exhibition is that each piece
evokes involvement from the viewer. These are moments, areas, corners, or
raggle taggle light reflections that echo something each one of us may have
seen or experienced.
The exhibition will hang until the end of May and all pieces are available
to purchase from the Town Hall Theatre Gallery. It is well worth a look.
Paul Mannion
The Galway Independent, May 10, 2006.
