Paul Seawright: Afghanistan

Paul Seawright was commissioned by the Imperial War Museum to visit Afghanistan during 2002 after much of the devastation had been unleashed on the country. Avoiding the trappings of an exorcising vision, best typified by the photojournalist's portrait of Afghanistan as a spectacle of ruins, his series of pictures are spare, subdued, understated and quiet.

Seawright's responses to the terrain of the destroyed and heavily mined desert landscapes of Afghanistan, both draws upon, extends and reworks the distinctive aesthetic the artist had established through earlier photographic work, made first within his home city, Belfast. In war-torn Afghanistan, Seawright is less concerned with the visible scars of war, but instead the hidden malevolence of its landscapes

Paul Seawright currently lives and works in South Wales, and is Head of Centre for Photographic Research, University of Wales College, Newport.

The Paul Seawright exhibition is organised in collaboration with Ffotogallery, the Imperial War Museum, Oriel Mostyn Gallery and the Irish Museum of Modern Art.

Pressetext

Paul Seawright
Afghanistan