The Man Who Sees Through Shadows

The Man Who Sees Through Shadows

Mike Bunn, Angus and Enda, Punks, 1984; photograph courtesy of the artist.

Mike Bunn, John Rocha’s 1st Collection 1984; photograph courtesy of the artist.

ON THE OCCASION of photographic artist Mike Bunn’s 80th birthday, the Office of Public Works is presenting a large-scale retrospective of his work, titled ‘The Man Who Sees Through Shadows’, in Farmleigh Gallery in Dublin’s Phoenix Park (18 November 2022 – 19 March 2023).

The exhibition presents over 130 high-quality prints from the artist’s diverse practice, which spans more than five decades. Beginning with a series of photographs that capture the atmosphere of Dublin in the early 1970s, when the artist first arrived in the city, the presentation goes on to highlight examples of Bunn’s pioneering fashion campaigns that he undertook from his studio in Temple Bar’s Crown Alley, which he set up with his late wife, the iconic stylist and boutique owner, Betty Wall.

These photographs chart his long and productive working relationship with many of Ireland’s then up-and-coming fashion designers, including John Rocha, Michael Mortell, Louise Kennedy, Philip Treacy, and Lainey Keogh. Also included in the exhibition are some of Bunn’s environmental and landscape photographs, which featured in several important publications, as well as his intimate portraits for The Writers, published in 1980 by the O’Brien Press. Conceived as part of the Sense of Ireland Festival in London that year, the book included (amongst 44 individual authors and poets) portraits of Brendan Kennelly, Frank Ormsby, John Montague, Neil Jordan, Mary Lavin, and William Trevor.

In the summer of 1996, Bunn was chosen to represent Ireland at The Round Tower, Copenhagen, when the city was the European Capital of Culture. The show featured images from his ‘Acid House Techno’ portfolio, examples of which feature in the Farmleigh exhibition. Also presented is a selection of powerful portraits of indigenous communities, taken in the year 2000 as part of an assignment for The Shubinak Trust, that took him to the Hindu Kush Mountains on the Paki-

stan-Afghan border, with the omnipresent Tirich Mir peak looming overhead.

In 2012, Bunn’s ‘Talking Heads’ exhibition of largescale, black and white photographic portraits of writers, poets and artists, was held in Solstice Art Centre in Navan, while in 2013, he conducted a fashion shoot on Skellig Michael for Juno Magazine, as the first photographer to be allowed to do so. This was followed in 2014 by ‘Volto Angelo’ – an exhibition of large prints in The Octagon Room of the Irish Georgian Society’s headquarters on Dublin’s South William Street.

Throughout his working life, Bunn has been interested in the landscape of Ireland and is particularly concerned with the fate of Irish bogs, especially those close to his home in County Sligo. The Farmleigh exhibition features several recent photographs of these magical and fragile environments, as well as his imagined constructs relating to the works of W. B. Yeats and the poet’s interaction with the region.

‘Mike Bunn: The Man Who Sees Through Shadows’ presents an extraordinarily varied selection of images that reflect with great sensitivity key cultural developments occurring in Ireland over the past 50 years. The exhibition is accompanied by a programme of talks and workshops that highlight the importance of Bunn’s vision as a classical photographer in capturing Ireland’s cultural, social, and environmental history. Forthcoming events can be booked through eventbrite.ie:

• Saturday 14 January 2023, 3pm – Exhibition Talk / Anthony Hobbs, former Head of Department of Fine Art Media, NCAD

• Saturday 11 February 2023, 3pm – Mike Bunn / Portrait workshop

• Saturday 11 March 2023, 3pm – Mike Bunn / ‘Plein Air’ workshop

‘Mike Bunn: The Man Who Sees Through Shadows’ continues at Farmleigh Gallery until 19 March 2023.

Mike Bunn, Empress, 2002, designed by Lainey Keogh; photograph courtesy of the artist.