In any town or city James Clancy travel to, a place he always visit is a bookshop, especially the used second hand kind. Beyond the smells and the seeming disorder lie treasures in abundance in the written word. Writers like Beckett, Goethe, Hemingway, Thoreau and Wilde to name but a few in written verse or prose. In these pages are found lines of text that stay with one and over time in some subliminal way prove to be an inspiration of sorts. This is the idea/thinking behind these illustrations, the text coming from the words becomes the narrative for the image that together engage both the mind and the eye in unison. The inspiration for these illustrations comes from old photographs taken from moments and dramas of everyday living.
James was born in 1971, close to the rural town of Newmarket in North Cork, Ireland. In 1990 he moved to Cork City where he studied film and worked in film, music and theatre, producing works which were screened at film festivals and on national television. His love of photography and illustration grew from these experiences. Since 2002 he has been working solely in photography and illustration. Still being influenced by film James’ works, many of them are photo series, have a narrative character. Since 2006 James has been exhibiting widely in Europe and Asia. In 2011 he published his first photobook called “Border Country”, a black and white photo series, through Kehrer Verlag which received the predicate “Selected Title” of the prestigious Deutscher Fotobuchpreis 2012. In 2012 his second book entitled ‘After Place 1: Südgelände was released. Since 2009 James Clancy lives and works in Berlin-Tempelhof.
by James Clancy
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