Ciarán Óg Arnold
Ciarán Óg Arnold (b. 1977) is an MFA photography graduate from University of Ulster. Arnold is the first Irish photographer to have won the prestigious international MACK First Book Award in 2015 for his series I went to the worst of bars hoping to get killed, but all I could do was get drunk again. His work was exhibited in Midlands – Photographs from the Interior group exhibition at Photo Museum Ireland (formerly Gallery of Photography Ireland) surveying the interior landscape of Ireland in 2008.
He was shortlisted for the Photo Museum Ireland / Source Magazine Solas International Photography Prize and international touring exhibition. His artist book received extensive international acclaim and was widely featured to critical acclaim in the press worldwide in 2015. Arnold has recently exhibited at Seen 15 Gallery during Photo London, and Les Rencontres d’Arles, France. In 2023 he was awarded the inaugural Artist Development Residency Award to develop his new body of work Man Among the Ruins, featured in the No Place Like Home exhibition in 2023.
His work has been purchased for the National Photography Collection at Photo Museum Ireland.
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Artist Information
Ciarán Óg Arnold's Book
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Ciáran óg arnold- Gallery of Photography Photobooks site
I went to the worst of bars hoping to get killed. but all I could do was to get drunk again
I went to the worst of bars hoping to get killed. but all I could do was to get drunk again is a diary of sorts, following men down piss alleyways and into empty bars. The photographer accompanies the seekers of oblivion, their lopsided faces caught between ecstasy and apathy, their mouths chasing after the numbness of inebriation.
This is Ballinasloe, a sandstone town on the River Suck in the easternmost corner of Galway in Ireland, seen through the eyes of a native, Ciarán Óg Arnold. Within the rabble, Arnold trails after the cast-offs, invisible men who spend their time in murky corners, choosing to do nothing but drift and drink. Ballinasloe is a mouth; in Irish, mouth of the ford, mouth of the crowds. “We claim to hate it here” , writes Arnold, “but the truth is that we choose to stay, hiding from reality, drowning in drink and wanting to be left alone as we await whatever fate is in store.”
Untitled, from the series I went to the worst of bars hoping to get killed. but all I could do was to get drunk again, 2015
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Photo Museum Ireland, National Photography Collection; Ciaran Og Arnold, Untitled, from the series I went to the worst of bars hoping to get killed. but all I could do was to get drunk again, 2015
Ciarán Óg Arnold, Untitled, from the series I went to the worst of bars hoping to get killed. but all I could do was to get drunk again, 2015
Details: Archival pigment inkjet print on Hahnemühle Photo Baryta, 50x70cm (paper size), uneditioned print, produced 2021, acquired for the National Photography Collection 2022.
Artists Exhibitions
Group Exhibition
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