Richard Wade

Richard Wade

Born 1989, November, 15 (Belfast, Ireland)
Website richwade.com

Rich Wade is a photographer from Belfast, Northern Ireland. He studied photography at Ulster School of Art and is now based in Brooklyn, New York. Wades work looks at the world of professional wrestling, an extreme type of physical story telling that mixes soap opera storylines with choreographed stage fighting. Events shown range from small shows in bars and clubs to large-scale productions in arenas. A portion of the project looks at death match wrestling: an ultra-violent form of the sport where wrestlers perform brutal blood laden matches with weapons. These contests feature barbed wire bats, thumbtacks, fluorescent light tubes, and flaming tables.

Wade now shoots regularly for WWE, the worlds largest professional wrestling organization.

Awards and honours

2016, Fulbright Award

Exhibitions

Solo exhibitions

Group exhibitions

2019, Future Projections, Studio One Toi Tū, Auckland Festival of Photography, Auckland, (New Zealand)
2019, Future Projections, India Photo Festival, Hyderabad, (India)
2018, Burning Hammer Film Festival, Newspeak House, Shoreditch, London ( UK)
2018, Now, Sheila C Johnson Gallery, New York (USA)
2018, Now, Art Museum of Nanjing University of the Arts, Nanjing, (China)
2018, Future Projections,India Photo Festival, Hyderabad (India)
2018, Focus, South St Gallery, Brooklyn (USA)
2017, Governing Bodies, Group Show – Sheila C. Johnson Gallery, New York (USA)
2017, Apparatus of Discomfort, Photoville Brooklyn, (USA)
2017, The Photograph as a Document, Hermitage Museum St.Petersburg (Russia)
2017, Auckland Festival of Photography – Auckland (New Zealand)
2016, Ping Yao Photo Festival – Ping Yao, (China)
2016, Privacy, Space, Voice Photoville – Brooklyn, (USA)
2016, Greetings from Ireland (Group Show) Landskrona Museum, (Sweden) Boxing – Richard Wade & Larry Fink, Titanic Museum Belfast (Northern Ireland)
2016, Greetings from Ireland (Group show) City Assembly House Dublin (Ireland)
2015, Greetings from Ireland (Group show) Triennial of photography Hamburg, (Germany)
2015, Photobook Melbourne, (Australia)
2014, Greetings from Ireland ( Group show) – Library Project Dublin, (Ireland) Backlight Photo Festival (Group Show) Tampere (Finland) September

Projects

Draw A Squared Circle (2016-2021)

Draw A Squared Circle looks at the world of professional wrestling, an extreme type of physical story telling that mixes soap opera storylines with choreographed stage fighting. Events shown range from small shows in bars and clubs to large-scale productions in arenas. A portion of the project looks at death match wrestling: an ultra-violent form of the sport where wrestlers perform brutal blood laden matches with weapons. These contests feature barbed wire bats, thumbtacks, fluorescent light tubes, and flaming tables.