James Rielly (B. 1956)

‘The figures, guardians of the secret, seem near in body but light years away in mind. For in their eyes it is often hard to discern any acknowledgement of the existence of other people. Their minds, in particular, seem fixed in two directions at once: on what is exactly before them, or on the eye of the lens. For in its growing entirety, Sensible Ways seems to speak of photography and its uses. Are the pastel colours a kind of emollient, taking our focus off the sadness and uncompromising reality of the image? Is the sense of passing time without thinking a comment on the way tabloid newspapers avoid or simply embroider the truth in order to purvey low entertainment to their readers?’
(S. Morgan, ‘Sensible Ways’, in James Rielly: Sensible Ways, exh. cat., Musée des Beaux-Arts de Nantes, Nantes 1997, unpaged).