Deborah Sheedy is an Irish cinematic artist whose work features otherworldly beings and silhouettes of people who once were. Most of her art is black and white atmospheric photography. She follows the aesthetic of rustic, films and delights in the ‘mistakes’ she makes with them. Dust, finger marks, undeveloped film and out focus photography inspires her. These ‘imperfections’ adds the storyline and characters she is trying to create with each of her photos, the concepts she is trying to underpin. Many of her thematic concerns involve absence and new beginnings, as well as identity. Her work focuses on the darkness in the light and more often than not, her work omits certain details such as faces, locations and actions that reconstructs the entire story and leads the viewer down an enigmatic path of mystery and wonder.

Her photos mimic a film still. It is grainy, torn around the edges, smudged, and stained.  The use of the concept of a film still creates the illusion that they a part of a bigger story, something bigger than themselves and that it is up to the viewers imagination. Sometimes  image is taken from a distance and manages to encapsulate the entire landscape and atmosphere without actually depicting any distinct environmental features.  Sheedy uses a slow shutter speed to capture movement and it produces a blur in the image.  This gives the overall image a feeling of transportation, captured in a moment of disappearance. The majority of her work is like a collection of undeveloped film still creating a patina of mystery.

I love Deborah Sheedy’s art. It is comparable to Francesca Woodmans, yet entirely different. Sheedy’s work often focuses on the theme of identity, with the subjects of the images remaining faceless, nameless.Her work is atmospheric and mysterious. A lot of her work conveys the presence of ghosts, or rather the absence of life and identity.