Paul Seawright

Paul Seawright's Valley, taken in Afghanistan in 2002. Courtesy Imperial War Museum, London

Paul Seawright (born 1965) is a Northern Irish artist. He lives in his birthplace of Belfast, Northern Ireland, and is Professor of Photography and Head of Belfast School of Art at the University of Ulster in Belfast.

Life and work

He is best known for his early work from his home city of Belfast, particularly the series Sectarian Murder, 1988.^[1] In this series, he photographed the sites of sectarian murders around Belfast, and paired the images with newspaper reports from the period. By removing reference to the victim's religion, he depoliticised the violence, focusing on the extensive civilian losses in the Northern Irish "troubles" (more than two thirds of deaths between 1969 and the ceasefires of 1994 were civilian). He was also the first editor of the Belfast-based photography magazine Source.

More recently, he has made photographs in post-war Afghanistan^[2] and urban Africa (Invisible Cities).^{[n 1]} In 2002, he travelled to Afghanistan, having been commissioned by the Imperial War Museum, London, to respond to the attacks of Sept 11th and the subsequent war against the Taliban. His photographs of minefields and battle sites have been exhibited internationally and are in numerous public collections.

Paul Seawright is Professor of Photography at the University of Ulster, and was formerly Dean of Newport School of Art, Media and Design at the University of Wales, Newport, United Kingdom. He was awarded a personal chair by the University of Wales in 2001, and is a Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society, Royal Ulster Academy of Arts and Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. In 2005, the FotoMuseum Antwerp exhibited a major survey exhibition of his work with accompanying catalogue Field Notes.^{[n 2]}

Seawright is a Council member of the Arts Council of Northern Ireland^[3] and Vice President of the Royal Ulster Academy of Arts.

Education

• Foundation Art - University of Ulster, Belfast
• BA (Hons) Photography Film and Video - West Surrey College of Art & Design (Tutors Paul Graham and Martin Parr)
• PhD University of Wales

Publications

• Death, Cambridge Darkroom Gallery / Kettles Yard, 1988.
• Valokuvataide Arkitaide, Helsinki, 1989.
• Shocks to the System, The Arts Council of Great Britain, London, 1993.
• The Orange Order, Paul Seawright, The Arts Council of Northern Ireland, 1993.
• Documentary Dilemmas, The British Council, London, 1993.
• Nervous Landscapes, Southeast Museum of Photography, Florida, 1994.
• Inside Information, Paul Seawright, Photographers Gallery, London, 1995.
• L'Imaginaire Irlandais, Ecole des Beaux Arts, Paris, 1996.
• Residential, Douglas Hyde Gallery, Dublin, 1997.
• Constructing Identity, (The Missing), Netherlands Foto Museum, Rotterdam, 1997.
• Irish Art Now, From the Poetic to the Political, Merrell Holberton Publishers, 1999.
• Tokyo Photo Bienniale Catalogue, Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, 1999.
• Paul Seawright, Monograph, Centre of Photography, Salamanca, Spain, 2000.
• British Art Show 5, Catalogue, 2000.
• The Map, Paul Seawright, Catalogue/Public Art Project SDCC (22,000 distributed).
• The Forest, Paul Seawright, Hasselblad Centre, Museum of Fine Art Gotenberg, Sweden, 2001.
• The Gap Show - Critical Art from Great Britain, Museum am Ostwall, Dortmund Germany.
• Hidden, Paul Seawright, Imperial War museum/ Bangor Museum of Modern Art, 2003.
• Further: Artists from Wales at the Venice Bienniale, Merrell, 2003.
• Re-Imagining Ireland: Irish Art Today, University of Virginia Art Museum, J Hartz.
• Maintenant: Now, Vincent Levois, Le Mois de la Photo, 2003.
• Gestes, Le Printemps de Septembre Toulouse, Actes Sud, 2003.
• Landscape of War, Centre d’art la Panera Spain, 2004.
• Paul Seawright Field Notes, Fotomuseum Antwerp, 2005.
• Invisible Cities, Paul Seawright, Works from Africa, Ffotogallery 2007.

Collections

Notable exhibitions

See also

• List of Northern Irish artists

Notes

1. ↑ Invisible Cities is here in Seawright's website
2. ↑ Field Notes is here in Seawright's website.

References

External links

• Official website
• Paul Seawright, biography, bibliography, works at Sies + Höke Galerie, Düsseldorf
• Paul Seawright at the Kerlin Gallery
• Irish Museum of Modern Art
• Wales at the 50th Bienalle of Art
• Rena Bransten Gallery
• Tanya Bonakdar Gallery
• Photography Now
• University of Ulster, School of Art & Design
• Newport School of Art, Media and Design