Source
Winter 2011

Like any relationship that went through a period of estrangement there is still something embarrassing about how art and photography get on with one another; something both parties wish could be forgotten. Nevertheless, there are still a number of blindnesses in the traditions (and institutions) of art and photography. Duncan Wooldridge believes that we have a limited view of art photography in the UK and Ireland. This is manifest both in the internationally produced work we see and the neglect of a number of historically significant artists from our own shores.

Another area with distinct traditions is that of art and photography education. Alexandra Moschovi has experienced both, as a student and teacher, and considers the growing convergence and remaining contrasts for those who study art and photography.

For the last six years Sadie Murdoch has made work about episodes from the early twentieth century, producing art that sits at the intersection of research and remaking. Murdoch’s engagement with photography is through painting, which she studied at art school, but photography-as-archive is the subject under investigation, and her work re-evaluates the way photographic documents construct and conceal the past.

By employing photography and drawing Anna Mossman has created a process that includes both the time consuming activity of meticulous mark making and the instantaneous photographic moment. She is engaged in undermining our expectations of the representational power of photographs, drawings and paintings. Her most recent series of painted film stills are simultaneously negative paintings and fabricated photographs.

Annabel Elgar’s work often begins with a news story or something else she has read. These form the germ of an idea that create an environment and suggest a character that inhabits it. In the resulting images we discover retreats and hideaways that are lodged somewhere between fact and fiction.

Source is a quarterly photography magazine, available in print and as a digital edition, published in Belfast, Northern Ireland. They publish emerging photographic work and engage with the latest in contemporary photography through news, thoughtful features and reviews of the latest exhibitions and books from Ireland and the UK. Their website brings together an archive of writing and pictures from the magazine alongside current features.¹