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Bedlam

Brian Dowling

£500 (Excludes VAT)

Brian Dowling is an important character in British fashion photography, the photographic printer to whom the kings of fashion photography turn when they want the best. A trained photographer himself, Dowling took on an emotionally demanding task when he photographed the fire-damaged home of his mother

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Art Info / Item Details

Brian Dowling, 2000

Featured in the Practice to Deceive: Smoke & Mirrors in Fashion, Fine Art and Film exhibition

Brian shot these images less than twenty-four hours after the fire occurred. As if the emotional strain of photographing your mother's wrecked home wasn't enough, practicalities were against him. After a fire, the remaining soot gets into your lungs making breathing uncomfortable and the stench of burning lurks for days as a constant sensory reminder. With no light (the electricity supply had been switched off and soot-stained windows allow almost no light through) Brian was quite literally shooting in the dark. Soot even crept into his camera rendering it useless.

What Brian emerged with was a set of images that capture a private and monumental moment. A home has a life of its own - here you can see that ending. The clock has stopped at 8.52pm signaling a moment frozen in time. A bowl of fruit is shrouded in soot; a bottle of mineral water stands on a bedside table never to be drunk; and a calendar destined never to make it past February hangs on the wall. All chilling reminders of the end of this home.

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