John Brown and James Hughes Roe Valley Arts and Cultural Centre, Limavady Until March 30
This is one of those delightful combination exhibitions where two or more creative arts combine to produce a response to a theme — in this case, winter.
The two creatives involved are John Brown, a poet and writer, and James Hughes, a photographer.
I am focusing here on Hughes’s photographs. James Hughes is a Northern Irish photographer with a practice ranging from social documentary to fine art and commercial. Self-taught but with extensive study of his art, holding an MA and an MPhil, he has been widely published and exhibited internationally.
Hughes says: “What is special about my practice is the elegiac tone, the note of longing that suffuses my work and demonstrates how I am touched by those places where damage and grace are inextricably entangled. My work bears witness to facts, be they visible or existential. It unconsciously links fragments, unearths connections and creates anew through the visual, like a sacred task.” Snow clearly reflects this if we accept “elegiac” to refer to something of, relating to, or involving an elegy or something that expresses similar mournfulness or sorrow. These black and white images are strongly emotive, cold and clinical in subject matter and presentation.
The tonal range of a black and white photograph is wonderful in its naked narrative impact. The stairwell in Snow 7 is beautifully composed and atmospherically chilling as it leads you up the gothic, crumbling staircase... to what?
The image Snow 1 is a close-up of two old bell pushes and a single occupant’s name tag surrounded by grubby finger marks, on a cold cement wall. One can continue with each of the images on show, but the real art here lies not just in the selection of subject and composition, but in the printing process, the sign of a real photographic artist.
Here, in James Hughes, we have just that, a masterclass in narrative documentary image making, images completely stripped down to their bare essentials, revealing an unexpected strength and power.
Elizabeth Baird