“Blue Crawfish” by Photographer Niall O’Brien
Photographer and business director Niall O’Brien got here to Louisiana’s St Martinsville parish seeking Gothic America. What he discovered was darkness, magnificence, kindness, violence, and a wierd isolation—an underbelly of the American dream. Revamped the course of 4 lengthy journeys, the photographs in “Blue Crawfish” emerge from Louisiana’s darkish historical past of colonization and slavery, the results of that are nonetheless very current as we speak. In a press release concerning the work, curator and author Francesca Gavin elaborates:
“Like lots of his previous initiatives, O’Brien befriended and have become embedded on this planet he depicts. He took portraits of getting older drunks and unusual characters. Folks at moments of deep tragedy and familial connection. He captures the darkness of the panorama, however all the time specializing in the human. Crosses marking roadside, alcohol-related deaths. Moss lined cypress bushes, deserted vehicles and burnt out properties. Mist on agricultural fields, bringing to thoughts the despair period panorama of John Steinbeck. Dying and mud are recurring focal factors.
Over time the engrained racist historical past of the world emerged, and the way that ongoing violence and segregation nonetheless influences the group. As an alternative, O’Brien’s atmospheric photos are an amalgam of unintentional moments that present the world as equally darkish and decaying as it’s lovely.”
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