Name Paul Seawright | Role Artist | |
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Books Invisible Cities, Inside Information: Photographs 1988-1955 | ||
Art of the troubles artist paul seawright
Paul Seawright (born 1965) is a Northern Irish artist. Seawright is professor of photography and Executive Dean of Arts Humanities and Social Sciences at Belfast School of Art at Ulster University in Belfast, Northern Ireland; he was its head. He lives in his birthplace of Belfast.
Contents
- Art of the troubles artist paul seawright
- Paul seawright voice our concern artist s lecture 2010
- Life and work
- Publications by Seawright
- Publications with contributions by Seawright
- Awards
- References
Paul seawright voice our concern artist s lecture 2010
Life and work
Seawright gained an art foundation at Ulster University, Belfast; a BA (Hons) in Photography, Film and Video from West Surrey College of Art and Design, where his tutors included Paul Graham and Martin Parr; and a PhD from the University of Wales.
He is best known for his early work from his home city of Belfast, particularly the series Sectarian Murder, 1988. In this series, he photographed the sites of sectarian murders around Belfast, and paired the images with newspaper reports from the period. By removing reference to the victim's religion, he depoliticised the violence, focusing on the extensive civilian losses in the Northern Irish "troubles" (more than two thirds of deaths between 1969 and the ceasefires of 1994 were civilian). He was also the first editor of the Belfast-based photography magazine Source.
More recently, he has made photographs in post-war Afghanistan, urban Africa (Invisible Cities) and America. In 2002, he travelled to Afghanistan, having been commissioned by the Imperial War Museum, London, to respond to the September 11 attacks and the subsequent war against the Taliban. His photographs of minefields and battle sites have been exhibited internationally and are in numerous public collections.
In 2005, the Fotomuseum Antwerp exhibited a major survey exhibition of his work with accompanying catalogue Field Notes.
Seawright was Dean of Newport School of Art, Media and Design at the University of Wales, Newport. Later he was, and remains (in 2017), professor of photography at Belfast School of Art at Ulster University in Belfast. From 2012 he was head of Belfast School of Art and is now (2017) its Executive Dean of Arts Humanities and Social Sciences. He is a Council member of the Arts Council of Northern Ireland and Vice President of the Royal Ulster Academy of Arts.