Silverlens proudly presents Frank Callaghan, a selection of photographs taken from the artist’s four solo exhibitions from 2008-2011: Stranger (2008), Dwelling (2009), River of Our Dreams (2010), & Moonshine Baseline (2011). Born in England in 1980, Callaghan’s love for photography began as a boy growing up in Baguio City, Philippines. It wasn’t until after studying finance and management at the Wharton School of Business that he gave into his calling as an artist working with photography. He first exhibited his work at the age of 21 in Philadelphia.
Callaghan lights his nightscapes with a mixture of available and strobe lights. He sets up the found, like a hunter setting up light traps for his camera; his is a meticulous and repetitive process. For Stranger (2008), is his first complete work of night photographs, he worked with neighborhoods familiar to him in the northern mountain provinces of the Philippines. He started with what felt most natural. “I try and pay attention to which direction I’m being drawn in, when to stop, when to push on. Force it and it won’t work.”, Callaghan said.
In Dwelling (2009), Callaghan captures the ambient aura and light of the city. He takes to the backstreets and saturates dwelling places, monuments of cement and metal, in washes of light and color from their immediate surroundings. He seizes rare glimpses of stillness, steeped in an acute awareness of the present. “I found myself drawn to the quiet, empty spaces of urban fringes at night and to the unintentional beauty of dwellings that seem to have grown organically out of the sincere need for shelter and the limits of material and space.” says Callaghan. His forthright perception eliminates the noise of judgment and elucidating the scenery with evidence of stories and leaves viewer to speculate. And as a product of his candid process and perception, he reveals the indwelling life and beauty that are most often overlooked.
In River of Our Dreams (2010), Callaghan breaks away from the allure of urban landscapes and focuses his lens on the elusive beauty of the Pasig River. While Callaghan has done extensive work on the river’s locale, he has only now taken the famed river as a subject. Appropriated from a slogan on a bridge traversing the river, the title speaks of a mysterious fusion of past, present, and future- recollections of its glorious past mingling with visions of its future potential, both of which congeal around the city and population that grew up with the Pasig River. River of Our Dreams is a visual re-examination of a cultural landmark that has escaped corrective action, but has, for the most part, been revered for its inexplicable beauty.
With his work firmly rooted in found nighttime landscapes, Frank Callaghan reveals his visual roots by making his light source his subject matter in Moonshine Baseline (2011). These are portraits of the moon hanging on the horizon. Setting up the found, like a hunter setting up light traps for his camera; his is a meticulous and repetitive process. In previous shows, Stranger, Dwelling, and the hugely popular River of Our Dreams, Callaghan would stalk urban landscapes looking for interesting material to record over long exposures. This time, he adds the horizon as a constant, as he puts the moon, our earth’s partner, in focus. Decidedly non-random in this process, he says, “There is peace and freedom in structure.” Callaghan has learned to simplify, and by simplifying, the message has become clearer.
-Words by Marga Jacinto / Isa Lorenzo
