Frank McElhinney Projects

       Ian and Kate Timefield was a collaboration between five artists that led to an exhibition at Platform, Easterhouse in 2019. The exhibition consisted of projections of photographs, a soundscape featuring original text and abstract painted wall hangings. The photographs explored ageing bodies as a metaphor for landscape. All images © Frank McElhinney

Patrick Durkin, was born on a tenant farm in County Mayo. He came to Scotland and became a coal miner at Kingshill No.1 colliery in Allanton near Shotts. He died due to the accumulation of coal dust on his lungs leaving behind a wife and nine surviving children, including my mother. Thousands of people worked in Kingshill No.1 during its fifty year life span. It was one of the first pits to be nationalised. After it closed in 1968 the land above ground eventually became a small nature reserve. The large 'bing' I used to climb as a small boy was levelled off and trees were planted by the council. The woods, ponds and lichens encouraged the return of mammals, amphibians, insects and birds. The summers are full of colourful flowers and butterflies. You'd never know this was once the site of heavy industry, except sometimes in winter when the vegetation dies back you can see the black slag of waste coal in certain areas breaking through the surface. I began photogr

Dounreay Nuclear Power Plant: Being decommissioned since 1998 Nineteenth Century commercial landscape photography played a significant role in the formation of Scottish national identity and in perceptions of Scotland throughout the rest of the world. George Washington Wilson and James Valentine, founded an image industry fuelled by romantic literature, new transport infrastructure and tourism that branded Scotland as a wild land with a tragic history. In 2018 I produced a series of Postcards from Scotland . These are landscape photographs made in a faux vintage style and printed as postcards. On the text side of each postcard is a brief phrase revealing some interesting or surprising fact about the location. This is a simple challenge to the legacy of nineteenth century landscape photography. The series was also prepared (by Street Level Photoworks) as a slideshow presentation with voiceovers and texts in Lithuanian and French for various screenings during 2018. Faslane: Ho

2016 saw a high pitch of anti-immigrant hysteria. Donald Trump promised to 'Build a Wall' across the entire Mexico-USA border. Europeans debated how to stem the tide of immigrants crossing their borders and, among other measures, funded Turkey to build a vast fence along their border with Syria. The UK voted to leave the EU altogether, partly motivated by the drive to keep immigrants out. Within this context I began walking the Antonine Wall. This is a second century border wall built by the Roman's across lowland Scotland, twenty years after Hadrian's Wall. It divided Brittania from Caledonia. I photographed remnants of Roman fortifications and the ditch and wall itself using kite and drone. A site of particular interest was Bar Hill Fort near Kirkintilloch. This fort had been garrisoned by 500 Syrian archers. Refugees from the contemporary Syrian War were beginning to settle on the Isle of Bute just as this work was being made. With the help of my sons, rockets we

                        Learable, Sutherland In the summer of 2015 I was greatly moved by news coverage of the mass migrations across the Mediterranean Sea and the accompanying loss of life. I wanted to respond to this catastrophic event but did not want to 'head toward the action'. Instead I began to reflect upon a time in Scottish history when people had been forced to migrate either literally or through economic circumstance. I travelled throughout the highlands and islands of Scotland photographing abandoned settlements from above using a kite and drone. This work appeared as part of a group show, Tabula Rasa II, in Streetlevel Photoworks in 2016.                         Broubster, Caithness                         Bornais, South Uist                         Glad Gugaurudh, Mull                         Lagantuin, Arran All images © Frank McElhinney

                        Cromarty In September 2014 during the first Referendum on Scottish Independence I was on a residency in Cromarty where I'd made some solargraphs. The exposures were begun before the referendum and ended after it had taken place. After the referendum it became clear very quickly that nothing had been resolved. The strange time compression of the solargraph seemed to capture the mood of irresolution quite well. I decided to travel to the 45 most populous cities and towns of Scotland and put up my home made cameras, filled with photographic paper, to be left exposing for a month. The full series was exhibited in the Grace and Clark Fyfe gallery in Glasgow and the Kaunas Photography Gallery in Lithuania during 2015.                         Arbroath                         Clydebank                         Dundee                         Glasgow                         Inverness                         Rutherglen                  

There was a fire in the Glasgow School of Art on Friday May 23rd 2014. As a result, my degree show was cancelled. By Monday I was on the road again. I went up to the source of the River Forth to begin the series that became False Start, Limitless Ending . The false start was the dunking of my kite and camera into the source stream when the winds fell calm. The limitless ending was a contemplation on death, infinity and the journey from source to sea. During my time at art school I'd already made several trips along the Forth whilst thinking about the hundreds, possibly thousands, of bodies that had passed down the river following the Battle of Bannockburn. False Start, Limitless Ending won the Jill Todd Photography Award 2014 and was exhibited in Street Level Photoworks, Glasgow and then Gracefield Arts Gallery, Dumfries. All images © Frank McElhinney

The Battle of Bannockburn More people died in Scotland on the 24th June 1314 than on any other day in history. They were killed or drowned at a great battle that was fought near Bannockburn during the medieval Wars of Independence. I began visiting the battlefield toward the end of 2010 whilst a student at the Glasgow School of Art. I made photographic works in preparation for my degree show in June 2014. The work was never shown. A fire meant the degree show was cancelled that year.