“Tomorrow is Saturday is an intimate, fascinating portrait of Irish collage artist Sean Hillen – a brilliant, complex, unruly mind, hemmed
Studio visits possible by appointment.
About
About the prints in the Shop:
The prints available on this site (and also online via jamartfactory.com) are the highest-quality archival prints. They come with a Certificate of Authenticity.
They are made personally by the artist, signed and stamped with the artist’s seal; and all but the smallest prints are limited-edition and numbered individually.
The fine-art paper used comes in standard ‘A’ format paper sizes, so please note that more square-format images will print with empty space on each side which will be removed for framing. The prints also have a border of space around the image to facilitate window mattes.
Multiple orders will mostly ship for the same price as single prints.
New selections of works will be added to the shop regularly, but all of Seán’s works are theoretically available as prints, so if you have a particular image in mind please use the contact form to enquire.
Please note: the site is due a rebuild, and things may not work properly so please bear with us and enquire by email if you don’t get a reply.
About Seán Hillen and his works:
Born in 1961 in Newry, Co.Down just beside the Irish Border, Hillen lives and works in Dublin. He studied first at Belfast College of Art, then went to London to study Media/Fine Art at the London College of Printing and then at the Slade School of Fine Art, London. He lived and worked in London from 1980 to 1992.
His works often involve photography and traditional paper photo-collage, sometimes with his own photos, and have often used humour to deal with serious subjects. His earliest serious artworks were black and white documentary photos taken starting in his teens, during the ‘Troubles’ era of conflict in Northern Ireland, which have since been acquired as a Separate Permanent Collection by the National Library of Ireland Photographic Archive.
A selection were published as a book: ‘Melancholy Witness’ by The History Press UK and republished by Trafalgar Square Press in the US. It was a Publisher’s Weekly ‘Annual Pick’ of 2014. The book has 120 of the photos and 7,000 words of captions by the artist. (See and buy the book at The Book Depository here, or a signed copy with an archival-quality miniprint included here at Photo Museum Ireland.) Read an excellent review here at the Irish Times.
His 1980’s photo-collage works in series like ‘Newry Gagarin..’ and ‘Londonewry..’ based on those documentary photographs mixed with tourist, toy packaging, religious and fantasy material were at different times highly praised and widely published, and at other times considered ‘controversial’ and heavily censored.
Hillen has been described as “the most censored artist to come out of Britain or Ireland since Joyce” (Irish Times).
Irish Times Chief Critic Fintan O’Toole wrote that they “remain the best expression of what it felt like to be in Northern Ireland during the Troubles…”
One collage features as frontispiece to the Imperial War Museum’s recent book ‘Art from Contemporary Conflict’.
Read more at the British Council site here: ‘History Through The Lens’
The gently post-apocalyptic and visionary ‘IRELANTIS’ series begun after he moved back to Ireland from London in the early ’90s, were launched with an opening speech by Seamus Heaney and published as a now-rare book in 1999 with an introduction by Fintan O’Toole, who wrote about them again in 2011 here. Mostly based on the already-hyperreal postcards of John Hinde they have themselves since become part of the Irish cultural landscape, featuring on over 40 book and magazine covers; as ‘Figure 2’ in the recent ‘Photography and Ireland’; on the cover of the recent definitive ‘Art in Ireland since 1910’; and the subject of academic interest in cultural, sociological and other studies.
Read ‘The Nation of IRELANTIS: Ireland as Elsewhere’ by Jennifer Way at the Journal of European Popular Culture.
Read more at the British Journal of Photography site; ‘The Wonderful World of Sean Hillen’, and here at The Guardian. -CONTINUES BELOW-
From the blog:
Tomorrow is Saturday – the Documentary about Sean Hillen’s life, will screen in online festivals worldwide. Screenings for the new
New Academic Paper Published In Important Journal ‘Seán Hillen, conspiracy theory and the ends of Irish art‘ by Professor James
BIOG CONTINUED:
His series in the 2000’s; “Searching for Evidence..” was related to the phenomena of ‘cognitive dissonance’ and ‘conspiracy theories’ in the wake of the 9/11 events and influenced by his personal experience co-designing the official Memorial to the controversial 1998 Omagh bombing; and the death of an acquaintance in the 2005 London 7/7 bombings.
The 2010’s series; “What’s Wrong? with The Consolations of Genius..” collided those ideas with Hillen’s interest in the lives of his artistic heroes; “I was curious because their lives were so like mine in ways” and a growing awareness of the significance of neurodiversity in human affairs.
Hillen himself was diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome in 2015.
(Read more at the RTE website; ’21st. Century Ireland in 21 Artworks’.)
He is working on a number of new collage series, one including kittens in the Sistine Chapel.
His work is in many significant private and public collections including the Imperial War Museum, London and National Gallery of Ireland, and he has won several awards and prizes including major Arts Council Bursary Awards in 2015 and 2022. He has given many interviews; been a visiting lecturer in many institutions and to different audiences and appeared on a number of panels.
A new full-length documentary on his life; ‘Tomorrow is Saturday’ was released on Netflix Europe on 17 December 2022. Broadcast first in Ireland in late 2021, it won the Irish Doc Fest ‘Audience Choice Award’ and the Royal Television Society ‘Factual Programme of The Year’. It is now available to rent in Ireland on the IFI@Home Player, and also on a growing number of cable networks internationally.
A new book of his collected collages, designed by Erik Kessels, is nearing publication. He is represented internationally by CLAIRbyKahn Gallery
Watch a short film about Seán by Curious Dog Films at Vimeo.
See the prizewinning short film Merging Views on Vimeo (login required).
