US landscape inspired Mayo photographer's new exhibition
THE Custom House Studios at Westport Quay is hosting an exhibition of the latest works by internationally recognised, multi-award winning photographic artist Michael McLaughlin.
The exhibition, entitled Out On A Western Plain, opens this evening (Thursday) and the event also coincides with the launch of a book of Michael's work, which accompanies the exhibition.
Out On A Western Plain is a collection of images from the American southwest. Inspired by the works of the great American landscape photographers of the 19th and 20th century, like Timothy O'Sullivan, Edward Weston and Ansel Adams, Michael undertook a road trip in order to put his own interpretation on the inspiring landscape of the American southwest. From the deserts of Nevada to the canyons of Utah to the vast wilderness of Yosemite, Michael brings his own eye and artistry to a great photographic tradition.
The results of his work are now to go on display in this exhibition and published in a beautiful, large format book.
Out On A Western Plain is Michael's study of an iconic geography that has informed popular culture through a huge body of familiar, and often dazzling, photographic imagery and as a backdrop for decades of Hollywood films.
In fact, it was one such image that first inspired a young McLaughlin to become a photographer.
He explains: “I grew up in Westport surrounded by the most beautiful landscape imaginable. However, one day I was eating a bag of chips in The Nevada (now Blue Thunder). A large photograph hanging in there caught my eye and changed my life forever.
“It was Mount Williamson, Sierra Nevada, taken by Ansel Adams in 1944. Up to that point I wasn't particularly aware of photography. I didn't even own a camera. I just sat and stared at that photograph and I knew then that I needed to be a photographer.....and that I needed to go there.
“Out On A Western Plain is the culmination of years of yearning to photograph that landscape and to try to understand why those photographers and that geography has such a profound effect on me and millions of other people around the world.”
The exhibition displays 17 beautifully rendered images, with evocative titles like Cook Bank, Rhyolite Ghost Town, Death Valley; Ode to Weston - Zabriskie Point Death Valley; Light Spirit - Taken in the slot canyons at Page, Arizona; Coal Burning Power Plant, Page, Arizona; Last Light on El Capitan.
The exhibition is Michael's first in several years. The limited edition book, also called Out On A Western Plain, is Michael's first publication.