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Seán Hillen writes about the
work on these sites: (updated 2012) "Most all of my works have been 'traditional' scalpel-and-glue photomontages. The oldest
ones were made between 1983 and '93, were always based on one of my
own documentary photographs made in Northern Ireland, and were somehow
related to and to an extent engaged in, the northern conflict. In 1993 I moved to Dublin. A second body of works,
of 'Irelantis', were made between 1994 and '97, and were partly in response
to my desire to get away from the 'war', and make more overtly healing
works, as I used to say; pictures full of Love instead of Anxiety. What I do: About the photomontage work: In the case of the earlier work, I suppose I was very
lucky, in that I had the motivation to make the montages, the material
in the photographs I'd been taking, and that the medium lends itself
perfectly to dialectic and political satire, which is what they are,
to some extent. I originally was taking straight photographs for exhibition
as a fine-art practice, and then began sort of 'embroidering' them with
found bits and pieces, but in the end I was taking the photos specifically
for use in montages. Though the work was actively censored from exhibitions
on a number of occasions, the public there really
liked it and 'got' it, and it gained quite high exposure for a while, if not the real
attention I sort of hoped for. At the same time though I had little interest in making or for that matter experiencing polemic or didactic art, which comes from a point of 'knowing better' than the viewer and telling one how it is. I really wanted, while conveying my ideas and impressions, to make the whole thing more open-handed, and that's partly why I like the rough collage construction, in that you clearly see the way the thing is made, and that's part of it . I believe they're to some extent 'thought experiments',
and adventures, trying out my ideas on myself and you rather than hitting
you over the head with them. They're definitely all meant to provoke
thought, and usually to make you laugh. Work that I personally like and admire would often be really serious comedy, from Jonathon Swift to Flann O'Brien to Kevin McAleer, the Dadaists and John Heartfield to the philosopher Robert Anton Wilson. I do believe there's some truth in the idea that a
good joke always contains some kernel of truth, although I remember
some quote from Oscar Wilde along the lines of that whatever statement
one can say that is the truth, then its opposite is probably also true. I also like really good religious art which
carries conviction, from El Greco to Stanley Spencer to Pasolini to the Irish painter Patrick
Pye. Of course I was coming from a 'fine art' background, and certainly want(ed) them to be seen and taken in that context, if only because all I really wanted in the end was to do really good art, art that would 'give you something', (which is what I like as a punter myself,) and for people to see it, and that was where it took me. In many of the early works there's often a dynamic
of the business of the onlooker being somehow insulated by the frame,
windows etc. but also implicated or otherwise inadvertantly involved.
The Irelantis pictures began I think partly as a joke
about whether Ireland was 'civilised', a sort of development from the
'noble / savage' jokes. There's often some disaster or catastrophe in progress,
but also an odd calmness while people go about their normal business
or look on curiously. I hope you enjoy seeing them. " Seán Hillen
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