Marble Rose
Pink Carnation
St. Pius X
Nursery
St. Valentine
Little Flowers
St. Audoen's
Shroud Rose
Sr. Peter
Marble Nerine
Bishop Rose
The Passing
Dead Shroud X
Show
Hydrangea
Dead Shroud
St. David
St. Iggy IX
St. Iggy X
Bethany
Shrove
Pink Carnation (grey)
Cyclamen
Four Sisters
St. David X
Limerick
San Ginés
Marble Paste
Sr. Suzy
Convent Life
'Little Flowers' 2016/17
Sexy, beautiful, ugly, dead, dying, everywhere. Flowers; symbols of life, love and death, memorials to those past and passing. We are all flowers, battling time, only we have infinitely more.
The flowers in Austin Hearne's photographs come from religious sites. A mixture of fake and real, arranged in various vessels and placed in differing settings. In contrast to these documentary photos, Hearne presents a suite of staged still lifes, assembled from the rose gardens and land around the now defunct St Clare’s convent in Harold's Cross. In these photographs he constructs every element within the photographic frame, from the painted vessels, collaged backgrounds and the arrangements of the flowers themselves.
Through a range of photographic and print manipulation Hearne presents these photos as symbols posing questions on the Catholic Church's influence on the many aspects of our lives, loves and bodies.