CAG.3282 Niamh Swanton, I’ve Always Been Rather Shy, 2022, photograph, 56 x 84 cm. Purchased, 2023. © the artist.  

WORK OF THE WEEK! 

I’ve Always Been Rather Shy (2022) by Niamh Swanton presents a frontal perspective on a flowering fuchsia hedge. A figure in a hot pink formal pant suit stands with their head in the hedge, and their back to the viewer, in a diffident expression of the title.  

The pose of the figure echoes and subverts the art historical Rückenfigur (back-figure) of nineteenth-century Romantic art in which a figure with their back to the viewer signifies subjective experience.  

Often her own subject, Swanton deliberately obscures her face to allow her images to gain a sense of ambiguity. In this work, is she resisting our gaze with characteristic humour in order to project a sense of introversion too?  

Niamh Swanton is a performative photographer based in Dunmore East, County Waterford. In her work, she ‘plays the roles of both character and director in images that depict the complexities of being.’  

As she explains, her work ‘is influenced by the intricacies of psychology and dream symbolism, acting through performance and staged photography to build tangible forms of thoughts and emotions. By moving through such territories, [the artist] fabricates scenes which obscure the boundaries between imagination and memory. Although the narratives are fictitious, the images act as a catalyst for viewers to question the relationship that we have with ourselves on a very real and interpersonal level.’ 

Swanton is a graduate of MTU Crawford College of Art & Design and previously featured in our exhibition, SATURATION: the everyday transformed (2022). Seven of the artist’s works are in the Collection, including There Are No Perks to Being a Wallflower (2019) and Nothing Didn’t Get Worse (2023). 

I’ve Always Been Rather Shy (2022) is featured in ALL EYES ON US until 24 March.  

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