All Weather Icons (1995)

All Weather Icons celebrates the vernacular splendour of Catholic shrines and grottoes in Ireland.
Catholic devotional statuary are a widespread and familiar sight in the Irish landscape. Rather
than carved from marble, many are cast from concrete, fibreglass or plaster, many are
less than immaculate and require ongoing maintenance and protection from
the pervasive damp climate. The repainting of these sites therefore plays an important role
in not just decoration and maintenance, but renewal. Unlike indoor Christian iconography
found within frescoes and easel paintings, these artefacts employ a different kind of
medium - exterior housepaint and Humbrol enamel. Made and manufactured in single colours and
often with a glossy finish, this paint is not intended to be mixed, so many of the statues
share a palette defined by the paint manufacturer rather than the artist.

25 c-type prints - a selection shown here

Exhibited at Crawford Arts Centre, St Andrews
Fotofeis: The International Festival of Photography 1995.

Catalogue: Foster, A Ed. (1995) Fotofeis ’95 with essays
by Val Williams, Pavel Buchler, Allen Lane. Edinburgh: Fotofeis Ltd

Exhibited at Watershed Media Centre, Bristol, 1997