NEOP
Taking its title from NASA's Near-Earth Object Program, this is a physical cosmology, investigating particular astronomical phenomena and the science related to the observation and exploration of such.
2013 - 2019
See the press page for more information
Phenomenology and Fascination are but two of several principals that draw people like Barry W. Hughes to Photography. There is also a resistance to the chaos of this world and its own laws of rational navigation; through which systematic measurement of things, places, and possibilities become much of the fabric that photography seeks to harness through its fixing of elements that comprise what we think of as an image.
In N.E.O.P (Near-Earth Object Program), Hughes catalogues and reviews a series of tableaux that become object-based systems for corollary understanding of our universe. He scales, relates, and measures a whole taxonomy of potential objects and diagrams the images with a precision found in the annals of scientific image rendering. Clever not to give full disclosure to the potentials of desire and fascination before the camera by way of definitive titles, the photographs become potential vehicles for our imagination rather than an absolute catalogue of actualities, which would render their interpretive value as grotesquely defined.
Within the work, form and function present possibilities that expand and collapse to serve our need for the acquisition of creative data control and image interlocution, making for the mapping and control of the heaven’s that much closer through pure imaginative phenomenon.
- foreword by Brad Feuerhelm
EXHIBITED
Deep Space Laundry, Washer/Dryer Projects, Salt Lake City, UTAH, USA. Group. 2019
AETHER, Jarvis Dooney Galerie, Berlin. Group. 2016
Lumen, The Crypt Gallery, London, UK. Group. 2014
NEOP, The Library Project, Dublin, Ireland. Solo. 2014
Contact Light, ARTicle Gallery, Birmingham, UK. Group. 2014
Of The Afternoon Issue 5 group exhibition, Vyner Street Gallery (London), UK. Group. 2014
Of The Afternoon Issue 5 group exhibition, Twenty Twenty Two (Manchester), UK. Group. 2014
INTERVIEWED/REVIEWED
HOTSHOE Magazine blog
POST Matter
The Incoherent Light (Darren Campion)
Dienacht Magazine
Conveyor Magazine
Of The Afternoon
ONLINE
Vice
The Shpilman Institute for Photography
Dust magazine
Photoworks Showcase
Freshland Magazine
Aint-Bad Magazine
Phases Magazine
Light Leaked Magazine
Latent Image
I Like This Art
INSTAGRAM
NEOP Visual Research Program
The Photographers' Gallery Instagram Takeover
Futures Photography
UFO
UFO
When my three-year-old niece asked her father, where his father was he replied “he’s working far away”. With the truth being that our father has been estranged from our family for nearly two decades, my niece then asked “Is he? What planet is he on?” Of course, we don’t actually know.
2013 - 2014
METASTATIC
The Conqueror (1956) directed by Dick Powel and starring John Wayne and Susan Hayward was shot on location at Snow Canyon State Park in Utah, USA during May-August of 1954. Snow Canyon is located 220 km downwind of Yucca Flats, Nevada, where above ground atomic testing lasted from 1951-1953. It was widely rumoured that the director, leading stars and a total of 91 of the 220 crew all died of cancer directly relating to the radiation fallout from the previous nuclear testing in the area, helped largely by an article in the November 10, 1980 issue of People magazine.
However, contemporary and subsequent testing of the area for any hazardous material and related health issues have consistently contradicted the rumours, and data collected in the Snow Canyon area in May of 1954 indicated the radiation levels were essentially background.
2012
Exhibited and Published by PhotoIreland: New Irish Works
Also featured online: American Photo magazine, The Guardian, Photomonitor, Dust magazine, From Dusk 2 Dawn
FAILED PHOTOGRAPHS
This is a collection of photographs taken from my personal family albums. In each case the photographs display an obvious visual failure to that which was originally intended. Photographs like these have existed in many family archives for decades, but until recently the use of digital cameras - and on the spot editing - has resulted in the decline of such mistakes.
2015