Micheal Fortune is a Wexford based artist whose work spans the formats of video and photography. His work explores the circumstantial boundaries between art and culture, folklore and interpretation and fact and fiction. He holds an M.A. in Film and a B.A. in Fine Art.
Recent solo shows include Triskel (Cork ), Wexford Arts Centre (Wexford ) and G126 (Galway). Groups shows include: 7000IS, (Iceland), Looking Glass (Galway), Tulca (Galway), Vague But True (Bristol), Castle of Imagination (Poland), Infusion (Limerick), Art Video Screenings (Sweden) and Transhift08 (USA). He has an upcoming solo show in Garter Lane Arts Centre (Waterford) in September 2008 and one of his short works was selected for The 2008 Edinburgh International Film Festival (Scotland).
He has produced numerous public and participatory art projects which have been presented at various locations ranging from village halls, ferry ports to handball alleys. Fortune's work has also been presented on national radio and television and he has been the recipient of various awards and bursaries from The Arts Council and Wexford County Council among others.
Michael Fortune’s work practice spans the formats of video and photography and revolves around the collection of material. His does not script or storyboard, instead he generates and collects material from the relationships and experiences he develops with the people and circumstances he encounters. Through a variety of techniques and approaches, he uses the camera as a tool to decode and re-code everyday folklores and rituals, and by doing so exposes the areas where certain boundaries over-lap and collide.
So much of Fortune’s work borrows heavily from accepted contemporary methodologies of recording, documenting and presenting information. As a result, his work refers to home videos, snap photography and the printed media as archive. Over the past two years he has built up a collection of photographs which are a mixture of tribal boundary markings, animal and human rituals and contemporary kitsch.
What Cat’s Drag In
In 2006 he began photographing the various birds and small animals which were brought in by his pet cats. A typical feline habit, he felt obliged to acknowledge these moments by documenting the dead.
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Dead Bears
In contrast to this animal ritual, Fortune has focused his attention on the related human practice of adornment and territory marking using children’s teddy bears. This collection of photographs documents the regional Irish practice of adorning electricity poles with bears decorated with county and parish sporting colours. The practice, an obvious territory marker, also echoes the historical use of adorning town walls and boundaries with the bodies of the executed or slain.
Piers
Another territory marker is the subject of the final series of images which features birds and animals that adorn the entrance piers to people’s homes. Echoing the ancient use of animal effigies and their symbolic placement in the built environment, the mass-produced cement figures, which have been popular in Ireland since the seventies provide the subject for this series.
Over the summer of 2008 Michael will continue to upload new images to the three collections. He is also inviting people to participate. If you have any photographs or wish to tell him of specific sites in your locality please contact him by email at micfortune@gmail.com or by phone on 087 6470247.