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Amelia Stein

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庭園　京都   Kyoto Garden

 

The Impermanence of Being

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5 March - 30 April 2025

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Oliver Sears Gallery is pleased to present a series of black and white photographs, Archival Pigment Prints on Bamboo paper from Irish photographer, Amelia Stein.

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Eleven photographs of timelessness and otherness of the constructed Temple Garden landscapes in Kyoto.

Japanese Gardens have had a long-held fascination for Stein who has made her unique black and white photographs for many years in the wild, open North Mayo Landscape. 

 

Stein transports her skills of visual exploration, documentation and interpretation of observed light, shape and form of natural elements to the vocabulary of these enclosed, reimagined landscapes. Selectively, the quantities and structure of the particular language of a maintained Japanese Garden, a mirror of nature, are revealed to the viewer. 

 

One of the prints has been handcoloured using lightsafe pencils. Details are finely observed in these meticulously crafted and timeless images, small meditations on the forms contained within the Gardens, and from which they are constructed.

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Born in Dublin, Ireland 1958. Elected a member of the RHA in 2004, the first photographer elected as an Artist Member (The Royal Hibernian Academy is an Artist-based and Artist-oriented institution in Ireland, founded in Dublin in 1823). Elected the first female photographer to Aosdána in 2006 ( Aosdána, founded in 1981, honours Artists whose work has made an outstanding contribution to the Creative Arts in Ireland).

 

Stein’s black and white photographs pursue character and the constituent elements that create them. Absence and the passage of time is a recurring theme. Described as a portrait photographer, her work is not confined to the figure or facial studies but the wider meaning of portraiture, from the conventional face to the breath of wider open landscapes, from small intimate details to the landscape on the grand scale . Though meticulously composed in the camera her practice gives equal emphasis to the subtleties of the darkroom and meticulous attention to detail in printing. Work is represented in the collections of The National Gallery of Ireland, IMMA ( Irish Museum of Modern Art ), the Arts Council of Ireland,  Butler Gallery Kilkenny, Limerick City Gallery of Art, the OPW and have been on view in solo and group shows in both Public and Private venues to the present day. Formerly as a performing arts photographer, Stein worked in Theatre and Opera in Ireland 1979-2000.

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