Welcome back to Shop Our Shelves, our series spotlighting artists and photographers through the photobooks that inspire their work.
For our third edition, we spoke with Irish artist Robert Ellis, whose exhibition The Forbidden Sun explores themes of memory, identity, repression and queer experience through photography, video and sound. Drawing on his experience of growing up queer in rural Ireland, Ellis uses landscape to explore feelings and experiences that often remain unspoken.
Here, Robert shares three books that offer different perspectives on queer identity, photographic representation and the possibilities of the medium. Discover his picks below.
1. Queer Methodology for Photography, Åsa Johannesson
"This book offers a really interesting way of thinking about how photography can engage with queer experience beyond simply representing queer subjects. Åsa Johannesson looks at how queerness can inform the methods and ideas behind photographic practice itself. That's something that resonates with my own work, particularly the possibility of using landscape and metaphor to explore experiences of identity, desire and belonging that aren't always easy to express directly."
2. Heaven is a Prison, Mark McKnight
"Mark McKnight's work is particularly interesting to me because of the relationship he creates between the body and the landscape. The photographs are intimate but also quite unsettling, moving between tenderness, isolation and desire. There's a tension between the figures and the environments they inhabit that I find really compelling. It's a powerful example of how landscape can become a way of exploring queer experience and emotional states without relying on straightforward narrative."
3. Hujar: Contact, Joel Smith
"Peter Hujar's photographs have an extraordinary sense of intimacy and connection. What's particularly fascinating about this book is the opportunity to see his contact sheets and understand more about how he worked, the decisions he made and the relationships behind the images. It offers a different perspective on photographs that have become quite familiar, but also emphasises the importance of photography as a way of recording queer lives, communities and personal connections."
Shop Robert's Picks
All three titles are available from the Photo Museum Ireland Bookshop while stocks last. Visit us in-store to browse the selection or shop online.
The Forbidden Sun continues at Photo Museum Ireland until 11 October. We look forward to seeing you there!
