News about Irish artist Sean Hillen

The design by Seán and landscape architect Desmond Fitzgerald for the Omagh Bomb Memorial has been installed.

News item in CIRCA Art Magazine.

some news, other bookcovers etc. at Irelantis news and Irelantis press

New webgallery- now nearly 900 of Seán's original photographs from the period of the 'Troubles'.

'wikipedia' entry for Seán Hillen

review of the photomontage work from CIRCA magazine

text on late IRELANTIS collages: excerpt from a 2006 catalogue text by Eimer McKeith here.

"The View" TV review of exhibition online TV review of focail.com project (both need RealPlayer)
video article at 3Dclic.com

Mic Moroney's introductory essay for the catalogue (2005)
2001 article on Seán's collage & photomontage works, by Mic Moroney here

recently added: images of Seán's video projection for Re-Joyce Festival (2004)

On the Omagh design:

IRISH TIMES article by Fintan O'Toole:
"shows why we need public art"

Sunday Tribune article
by Eimear McKeith :
"How can a memorial
present hope for the future?"

blogger pimlicoarts : "doubt there are many ..more qualified to create a.. memorial"

apublishersblog:
"moves memorials onto a new level"

photomontages from the 'Troubles' era

later collage works at irelantis.com

collage and other links

contact details

back to homepage and other galleries

some information on this work

Contact Seán Hillen here

Download a printable pdf document of 48 photomontage images (2.9Mb)

image downloads:
(right-click image or title and select 'download link to disk')

Or use contact mail above to request any image from the GALLERY
Warning- large files!

"Who Is My Enemy?"
photomontage, 1987 - 3,478 x 3,272 pixels 1.8MB

"Cosmonaut Lands in Annalong Harbour"
photomontage, 1992. 2,843 x 3,480 pixels 2.72MB

"The Goddess Appears in Newry, Easter 1993"
photomontage, 1992. 1,998x 2,532 pixels 1.44MB

Seán Hillen prints now at:
the o riginal print gallery

Essay on Seán's early montage work by JohnHeartfield expert David Evans (1993)

Older news below:

2003:
An onlineTV video review on RTÉ's "The View" of focail.com, the collaborative billboard & web project by Seán, Ruán Magan & Gabriel Rosenstock
(requires 'realplayer'. On some Macs, you may have to copy the link and paste into the player)

2002:
Seán was one of several Irish artists commissioned for the ABSOLUT collection.
He made a lava lamp of the famous bottle:

2002:
Seán got a mention in Yahoo! Picks in June in a review of the excellent photomontage site Cut'nPaste

2001:
Seán made a video for the Super Furry Animals, for their DVD album & single 'Rings Around The World'.

Here's a review, and another review. Here's an article from a local paper, the 'Newry Democrat'
He used 'The Great Pyramids.IRELANTIS.' collage at the beginning and end of the video and it became the cover image for the single of 'Rings Around The World'

more here at irelantis news

March 1999:
Seán had 23 collages (half 'Irelantis', half 'troubles' in an exhibition in the Royal Festival Hall, London, which then travelled to The Royal Photographic Society at Bath.

"The Goddess Appears in Newry"
was the leaflet and poster image, and appeared on the cover of
the June '99 "Photographic Journal", the magazine of the Royal Photographic Society.

Many other SH montages
were published in the press,
one across a full page of the London Times Metro.

"St. Christopher Appears in London.." appeared on the cover
of LAM magazine:

1993:
"Jesus Appears in The City"
appeared on the cover of
' Creative Camera' magazine. There was also a colour spread inside.

In 1981, this documentary photo of Seán's was used on the cover of a memoir by the late Nora Connolly O'Brien, daughter of Easter Rising leader James Connolly.
Seán didn't know about it until a few years ago.(he had lent the negatives to a friend who provided them to the publishers and who is actually credited on the back)

Mosquito Press, 1981

latest news:

June 2009: MAJOR 'ART & CONFLICT' CONFERENCE
Seán will be a panellist at a major conference in Belfast. "Art & Conflict" , organised by the Arts Council of Northern Ireland will be held in the Royal Opera House Belfast on 17th June. More information here or download flyer PDF.
The programme is here (PDF).

June 2009: UPGRADE TO OMAGH SCULPTURE
Recent weather allowed work to upgrade Seán and Desmond FitzGerald's Omagh Bomb Memorial. The sunlight effect, where sunlight is brought from the Memorial Garden by a system of mirrors, is now working very efficiently and giving a very bright effect. See new photos at omaghbombmemorial.com .

June 2009: BOOK LAUNCH
Seán launched a book for Dr. Maria Duffy of the Milltown institute. "Paul Ricoeur's pedagogy of Pardon" 'describes how memory is structured, ... and addresses issues in his theory of forgiveness and reconciliation'. Dr. Duffy's book includes an illustration of the Omagh Memorial.

May 2009: LODZ FOTOFESTIWAL POLAND
Seán was one of three Irish photographic artists who attended Lodz Fotofestiwal. Curated by Peggy Amison of Sirius Arts Centre and with the support of Culture Ireland they attended presentations of their work and participated in the Portfolio Review sessions, an opportunity to meet curators, gallerists and publishers. The other artists attending were David Farrell and Eoin O'Connaill and the work of Jackie Nickerson and Mark Curran was also shown.

April 2009: PERMANENT MUSEUM EXHIBITION
Three of Seán's 'troubles'-era works can now be seen on continuous exhibition at the Imperial War Museum IWM North in Manchester.

November 2008: NEW COLLAGE WORKS
More than 12 new collages by Seán were unveiled in an exhibition at the Gallery of Photography, Dublin. There was a reception on Friday 14th. with a performance by the marvellous Kevin McAleer.
There is a new webgallery for the work.
For more info download the press release here.
UPDATE: Someone has kindly uploaded a video of much of Kevin's performance- Worth seeing! HERE.

One of the images was simultaneously exhibited as a 48-sheet billboard in three locations in Belfast as part of the "Art, Media and Contested Space" events (pdf download) by the 'Interface' unit at the University of Ulster School of Art & Design

August 2008: MAJOR MEMORIAL UNVEILED
The Omagh Bomb Memorial, by Seán and Landscape Architect Desmond Fitzgerald, was unveiled at a 10th Anniversary event in Omagh.
more information at www.omaghbombmemorial.com.

August 2008: MAJOR ARTICLE PUBLISHED
Artinfo.com carried a front-page article on Seán's work and the Omagh Memorial commission.
Read "The Art of Peace" by OscarMacLennan

August 2008: EXHIBITION OF NEW COLLAGE
A new and previously unseen collage work by Seán appears in an exhibition at the Irish Gallery of Photography, Dublin.
"No Evidence of A 757 Near the Ha'penny Bridge, Dublin" appears in: 'Based On Our Current Science', curated by Sally Timmons runs August 14 th until September 21st.

June 2008: EXHIBITION
Several IRELANTIS works (about 5 originals and 5 prints) were featured in a major exhibition as part of the 6th World Archaeological Congress in UCD Dublin.
The exhibition ran from 30th June until 31st. July.
Click here for more information.

May 2008: EXHIBITION OPENING
Seán opened an exhibition for students in BA (Hons) Creative Imaging from the SRC Lurgan, and Huddersfield University, at 7.30 pm at St. Patrick's Trian in Armagh.
Click here for more information on the work and show..

March 2008: ONLINE PUBLICATION
The marvellous CANDY COLLECTIVE have published 20 pages of Seán's work, with an interview, in their free downloadable mag (40Mb). You can find the link HERE.

February 2008: MUSEUM PURCHASE
The Imperial War Museum, London, have purchased two more of Seán's 'Troubles' - era photomontage works for their Permanent Collection.

January 2008: NEW BOOK COVER
One of Seán's 'IRELANTIS' collages is on the cover of a new book: "Film, Media and Popular Culture in Ireland" by Martin McLoone, author of the standard work on Irish Cinema

January 2008: NEWSPAPER PUBLICATION
One of Seán's 'Troubles' - era photomontage works was published in "Le Monde- Diplomatique" to illustrate an article on 'Troubles tourism'.

December 2007: SEMINAR IN BELFAST
Lens Based Practice and the Representation of Conflict: "Through a lens, darkly" Presentations by and discussions with Seán, Peter Kennard, and Cat Phillips. 13th December.
READ MORE

November 2007:DOCUMENTARY SCREENING
"Hillen- Return To Newry" (Dir. Aidan Bell) at the Foyle Film Festival "Artist Seán Hillen grew up in Newry, surrounded by the conflict of the'Troubles'. Nearly forty years later, he revisits the place that influenced his work so heavily.. "
MORE

October 2007: TALKS
Thursday 11th October-Dublin.Sugar Club, from 7pm.SweetTalk 27 : "an audiovisual spectacular retrospective of the graphic visionary Niall Sweeney" with contributions from 'heroes & muses', included a short presentation by Seán.

Seán gave a presentation on his work, as a guest in "SweetTalk 26 " an evening with 'Factory' photographer Nat Finkelstein, related to "The Eternal Now" Andy Warhol exhibition in The Model in Sligo.
SweetTalk is a project by the Candy Collective. Check out their free pdf magazine.

September 2007:
One of Seán's IRELANTIS collages; "Newry Gagarin over Dublin" was in a show called "[C]artography: map-making as artform" in the Crawford Gallery in Cork.

August 2007:
Two of Seán's photomontage artworks from the 1980's are on semi-permanent exhibition in the 'TimeLine' in the Imperial War Museum North in Manchester.
The IWM acquired several of the works for their Permanent Collection in 1988.

May 2007:
The images Seán created with Deansrath College pupils for Amnesty Ireland (see more below) have been published, with others, in a workbook which will be made available to schools.

April 2007:
Seán exhibited a number of 'Troubles"- era montages, in an interesting show in "The Gallery Newry" from the 13th to 27th of April

March 2007:
Seán took part in the SOURCE AT 50 'PHOTO QUIZ' event being held in Dublin on 24th March, to mark the relaunch of the photography magazine. At the Gallery of Photography, and free to attend, this "epic battle for the very soul of lens-based media itself" pitched teams of curators against photographers.

Febuary 2007:
There is a new webgallery of nearly 900 photographs from the period of the Northern Irish 'Troubles'. This includes all the photos in the original gallery.

February 2007:
Seán's 'IRELANTIS' collages are used in the opening graphics of TG4's (the Irish-language TV channel) series,
"Cártaî Poist" which re-creates classic Irish postcards.

January 2007:
All images in the main gallery of photomontage works now zoom in to hi-resolution versions.
Click on the image to enlarge it and click again to return.

January 2007:
Dublin City Council have commissioned a new public sculpture from Seán.
It's for an open space at Claddagh Green in Ballyfermot in Dublin.

January 2007:
Seán's Dublin Bicykills photos were written about in an Irish Cycling blog.

December 2006:
Seán appeared on RTÉ TV's 'Capital D' talking about 'SEED' the new Art/Science group in Dublin.

November 2006:
There is now a 'wikipedia' entry for Seán - click here

October 2006:
Seán gave a presentation, open to the public, on his work at Limerick School of Art & Design

September 2006:
Seán exhibited and lectured at this year's Westport Arts Festival

July 2006:
Seán contributed some works from his 'Dublin BicyKills' project to the first Dublin Bicycle Festival

July 2006:
Seán gave one of the plenary lectures, on his work, at the 7th International Conference of the Utopian Studies Society,on the 8th July in Tarragona, Catalonia (Spain).
The other lecture was given by British novelist Maggie Gee.

May 2006:
Seán was one of the invited artists at the 2006 Royal Hibernian Academy Annual Exhibition

May 2006:
Seán took part in Amnesty International Irish Section's "Voice Our Concern" project for Secondary School students.

Here is a web-page with the images.
He worked with a group of students in Deansrath Community College in Dublin.

May 2006:
Seán gave a presentation on his work to the Annual Conference of A4,
the UK Association for Advice & Support in Art & Design, in Newcastle on 13th May.

December 2005:
Seán's 'troubles' photomontages were the inaugural show in Dublin City Council's new LAB Arts Centre.
The show, comprising over 40 images ran until December 3rd.
The exhibition was opened with a speech by Fintan O'Toole

October 2005:
Seán made the inaugural presentation to Dublin's new "SEED" art-science salon.
He presented an exhibition and talk to the group on his as-yet-unpublished work in the area of 'lost technology', and some of the artworks he is creating as a result.

September 2005:
Five new 'IRELANTIS' coIlages, the first since 1998 were shown in the new Stone Gallery in Dublin.
The show included new work by Seán and Antóin O'Heocha and two prints by Andy Warhol.
update: Three of the collages were acquired for the AIB Bank and one for a private collection.

July 2005:
Seán made a collage for Dublin's"City Arts" organisation.
It was for a mailout to announce the move from their old building at Moss St. to offices in Merrion Square.

June 2005
"The Goddess Appears In Newry.." is a full-page chapter opening in a new French schoolbook on 'war and peace in religion':
"Geurres et paix- paix et conflit dans la religion"
Editions Palette, 2005 ISBN 2-915710-14-7

May - August 2005:
15 of Seán's IRELANTIS images were in an exhibition at the ECB in Frankfurt.
"Contemporary Art From Ireland" included 65 works from 22 artists and rans from 19th May to the 20th of August. The group of works included 6 collage originals and 9 prints.

new review:
There was a new review of the Paris exhibition in"CIRCA" , the Irish Art journal.

March-April 2005
A previously unseen 'IRELANTIS" collage was in a show at the RHA gallery in Dublin.

April 2005
Seven collages were added to the IRELANTIS web gallery.

February 2005:
The "Leabhar Mór" exhibition was in the Glucksman Gallery and Seán 's image for the project was on the page on their site

November-December 2004
As part of the 'Mois de La Photo',
There was a major exhibition in Paris of Seán's 'troubles' work in the Centre Culturel Irlandais from the 9th of november to the 18th December 2004.
The exhibition also included a slideshow of Seán's original photographs from the period.

Seán's work was featured in several magazines and on the web:
A full-page image in "Beaux-Arts Magazine", features in "Palace" magazine, "France-Soir", "Le Figaro", "Paris Voice" and in
a three-page spread in "Art Actuel" magazine (translated here).
There is an online interview at 3declic.net and it was the front page image and featured in"Art-Of-The-Day.com"

June-November 2004:
Three Seán Hillen photomontage originals were on exhibition at the Imperial War Museum, London
The exhibition was called: "OPEN SECRET- Something old, something new - redefining the boundaries of the Art Collection"
and ran until 28th of November '04

October '04 and Feb '05:
Seán's "Dublin BicyKills" gallery of vandalised bikes was linked from the front pages of VeloVision Online :
a contributor says :
"..the most bloody depressing thing I've ever seen..." and Velorution
( see 'painful' screengrab right).

October 2004:
New book cover: the 'Bóthar' image from the 'Focail.com' project with Ruán Magan is on the cover of:"Collision Culture:
Transformations in Everyday Life in Ireland
By Kieran Keohane and Carmen Kuhling "

July 2004:
in Dublin City Centre; a new permanent public sculptural work, in collaboration with Katharine Lamb , in a percent-for-art commission for Dublin City Council.

June 2004:
Seán made a commission for the ReJoyce Festival: click to see more
Co-devising & directing:
Raymond Keane.
The biggest ever projection project in Dublin, in collaboration with Raymond Keane of Barabbas The Company , for whom he'd previously designed 'The Whiteheaded Boy' . The show ran every night at the Millennium Bridge in Dublin, at about 11pm every night until 1am, until 6th July.

Cast: Raymond Keane, Susie Lamb & Marcus Lamb.
2nd camera and additional editing & effects: Tony Kenny.
Production manager for Sean: Katharine Lamb.
Costume: Marie Tierney
Makeup: Joanne Boyle.
Hair: Anna Gronerus

March 2004:
Seán made a 48 x 4 foot banner for the St. Patrick's Festival "Talking Irish" Symposium. using his photographs from the detritus of the Dublin streets.
The banner had a central row of discarded umbrellas, above a row of alternating thrown-away coins and food, and below was alternating vandalised bikes and infinity-twisted bike wheels (see the VACUUM cover below)

Above Right: The whole banner
re-formatted.
Below Right: The banner in situ.

Seán did an interview on RTÉ TV's afternoon programme 'Open House' to talk about the banner and his other work. He also showed a prototype of his and Katharine Lamb's new sculpture work (below).

Open House put up a web page article about Sean.

February 2004:
Seán produced two cover images for a special Dublin edition: "Down Mexico Way" of "The Vacuum" magazine, published in Belfast by Factotum

One was based on a photo by Seán of a guy in a Dublin street, the other a montage of 9 bicycle-wheels-twisted-into-infinity-symbols from the ongoing but not yet published bicycle project of which an early version is here. (see June 2002 below)

February 2004:
One of Sean's IRELANTIS collages was on a front page at the new online National Irish Visual Arts Library

January 2004:
Seán made an illustration- a montage over a photo of the Super Furry Animals' Gruff, by Myles Claffey, for Myles' "Foggy Notions" magazine

August 2003:
Seán made a major sculpture, for Citigroup in Dublin. There's a webgallery for it here.

You can see the sculpture inside and from outside the atrium of the Citibank building on the North Wall Quay of the Liffey in Dublin.

June 2003:
"Trouble in Paradise,#1" appears on the cover of a major new book: "The Troubles in Ballybogoin: Memory and Identity in Northern Ireland"
William F. Kelleher, Jr.
University of Michigan Press
Cloth 0-472-11169-8

June 2003:
Seán made the artwork for a new CD by Katell Keineg. It uses photos by Katell, Clare Langan and Seán.

March 2003:
Seán collaborated with Ruán Magan on 'focail.com, a cultural campaign' with a website and 40 billboards nationwide.

A review on RTÉ television's 'The View' can be seen online here (requires 'realplayer')

February 2003:
Seán made an contemporary pastiche of Richard Hamilton's "Just What Is It About Today's Home..?" as a publicity shot for Rough Magic Theatre Company's "SHIVER" at the Project Art Centre

2002:
Sean made a photoshop & collage image to illustrate a poem in The Great Book of Gaelic, published by Canongate.

June 2002:
A sequence of the Bicykills photos was featured in Ruán Magan's film for the RTÉ TV series 'The Changing Face of Dublin' in May 2002
On 1st. June Dublin Corporation ran this ad. (right) in the Irish Times.

March 2002:
For the Darklight New Media Festival, Seán made a website gallery of 256 photographs he took of discarded umbrellas.
There's also now a new gallery:
people with broken umbrellas

2002:
Seán contributed a design for a playing card to the Irish Hospice Foundation's Art-Pack project.

June 2001:
Seán produced a set of images for advertisements with McCann-Erickson for the Bank of Ireland.

Hybrid photoshop/collage works, they're pastiches of classic John Hinde Ltd. postcard scenes, with ATM machines in appropriately inappropriate places.

The ads ran again the following summer, in Cara magazine, in Dublin Airport and sea ports.

Top: "Visitors at The ATM At Blarney Castle"

Middle: "Stopping Off at The ATM At a Neolithic Dolmen"

Bottom: "A View of The Bay From a 12th Century Round Tower ATM"

2001: Seán made a sleeve design for his friends in
Dacianos

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