Samuel Laurence Cunnane

“Having been very influenced by documentary film, in particular direct cinema or cinema verite, my approach to photography has from quite early on in my practice probed questions about the apparatus of the camera as analogous to the mechanisms of the eye and the act of witnessing itself.

I am interested in the formal interaction between eye and lens and where the shortcomings of both interact.

I’m interested in the detritus and left over elements of what isn’t tidy and doesn’t get subsumed but resists progress and commodification or what is left after commodification occurs.

For my most recent work I have been working in the west of Ireland photographing in small towns and villages, normally in the outskirts and using these very different and varied elements to form my own alternate vision of a place; one of surreal scenes of post colonial flora and the incessant damp, harsh light and pebble dash.

The idea of the landscape as a disconnected and vaguely threatening force barely held in check by a veneer of human order seems increasingly pertinent.

I am interested in exploring the parts of the landscape or environment that are liminal spaces, not only in the physical sense such as a boundary on the edge of a town or a forgotten woodland or even garden but in the sense of being on the outskirts of our ability to perceive, a blind spot of sorts, its presence felt perhaps but difficult to comprehend.”

Bird Statue (2019)

Siobhán 1 (2019)

Fox (2019)

Plant Study (2018)