In our diverse and full of possibilities world, it is not surprising that artists explore different disciplines and jump from one speciality to another depending on the language that best suits their expressive needs at all times. This has been the story of Eamonn Doyle, to whom the Mapfre Foundation dedicates an exhibition that includes the highlights of his short but brilliant career as a photographer.

Eamonn Doyle, ON (series) nº 1, 2014 © Eamonn Doyle, courtesy Michael Hoppen Gallery

Eamonn Doyle began his career in the art world with painting studies and later on photography, between 1987 and 1991. However, after some initial trips in which he tried to develop as a reporter photographer, in 1994 he left the camera and dedicated entirely to music. For twenty years he worked as an editor and music promoter, which led him to travel the world while organising festivals or recording albums. But six years ago, he decided to retake the photograph, becoming in record time one of the most recognised contemporary photographers.

His previous career, however, has an essential influence on his work. The cultural movements of the last decades, which run in parallel to music, along with his passion for literature, clearly appear in his images. In this context, his hometown, Dublin, gains a unique presence, revealing his urban life and the pulse of the new generations soaked in the socio-political context of the moment.

Eamonn Doyle, "Untitled 28", 2013, © Eamonn Doyle, courtesy Michael Hoppen Gallery

One of his best-known works is the "Dublin trilogy", with the series i, ON and End. To these is added another famous project: K, focused on spectral images that the photographer took in Ireland and Spain. His work characterises by urban ambience in edged frames that force the viewer's point of view. The absence of straight cuts, the abundance of angles and perspective cuts convey a constant sense of activity and movement.

That same movement is present in the K series, where the wind appears to stir the tissues and hide the figures. This concealment game catches the characters with enveloping movements, which also generate confusion and anguish. There is a particular surreal message in these images, with faceless anthropomorphic forms on inert backgrounds of sharp contrast.

Eamonn Doyle, “K-20”, 2017

Likewise, we must highlight the constant presence of music in the photographer's work. The exhibition in the Sala Bárbara de Braganza also holds a video piece entitled “Made in Dublin”, in which sound plays an important role. Doyle has continued to collaborate regularly with composer David Donohoe, whose pieces are an integral part of many of his works such as the K series or his video creations.

Bárbara de Braganza Room (Mapfre Foundation): from September 12th to January 26th.

In the year 2020 in the heart of Barcelona a wandering gallery was born, the same one that in February 2021 would debut at Art Madrid with an exhibition proposal focused on contemporary portraits; with this subject matter it would manage to create a powerful dialogue between artwork and audience and make the seal Inéditad remain in the history of the event that contained it.

Jean Carlos Puerto. Protección. Oil and copper leaf on wood. 60 x 48. 2021. Image courtesy of the gallery.

Since that first time and until today, the wandering gallery has managed to build projects on otherness, has repositioned in the spotlight the discourses on the LGTBIQ+ collective, has consolidated a group of artists who share its principles of resilience and empathy and the best thing is that it continues to bet from the professionalism and commitment to give voice to the difference.

Claudio Petit-Laurent.. El Joven de la Perla. Oil on wood. 30 x 30 cm. 2023. Image courtesy of the gallery.

Inéditad Gallery, thanks to its founder Luis López, its collaborators and the infinite possibilities manifested in the works of the artists it represents, is a gallery that has demonstrated its capacity and courage to stimulate the sensibility of the public through art and seduce a generation that moves between the glass window and the analogical story. Inéditad is a nomadic gallery that has gathered around it a community of artists and has moved the context with exhibition projects that think about LGTBIQ+ art without prejudices.

Pepa Salas Vilar. Las marcas del arcoiris. Oil on canvas. 40 x 50 cm. 2022. Image courtesy of the gallery.

Pride and Prejudice was inaugurated. An exhibition that brings together the works of sixteen artists: Abel Carrillo, Alex Domènech, Carlos Enfedaque, Silvia Flechoso, Jamalajama, Daniel Jaén, Claudio Petit-Laurent, Jean Carlos Puerto, Fernando Romero, Pablo Rodríguez, Pepa Salas Vilar, Jack Smith, Pablo Sola, Bran Sólo, Elia Tomás and Utürüo. Painting, illustration, photography and digital art are the manifestations that bring into dialogue around fifty neatly threaded pieces, in a discursive line that discusses such a latent phenomenon as discrimination. To achieve this, the artists invited to the exhibition question themselves whether: Does discrimination exist within the LGTBIQ+ collective?

Pride and Prejudice Official Poster. Image courtesy of the gallery.

With approaches on and from the body, the proposal invites to celebrate diversity, proposes to question and self-question the prejudices and attitudes of society against the collective. Pride and Prejudice is a space for dialogue about the constructs imposed on us by society. It is also an oasis in which to deconstruct with tolerance and respect the subjectivities that sometimes prevent us from approaching the production of the participating artists, simply because "the beautiful" does not fit in an androgynous body. The subjugation of stereotypes are pressed with determination to find the beauty of diversity in other palpable facets of reality.

Pablo Sola. All men are dogs. Photography. 2014. Image courtesy of the gallery.

Throughout these three years Inéditad has stimulated the vindictive projection towards bad practices, has questioned estates around the LGTBIQ+ body and the most admirable thing, is that these capacities have resurfaced around the dialogue and the visual narrative of the stories that are told from the visual: Artworks that are people, art that is, per se, humanity. Overcome impositions and accept what is different in order to continue fighting against homophobia, biphobia, lesbophobia or transphobia and defend the equal rights that all the acronyms of the collective deserve in our community.

That's Pride and Prejudice: One creature, the happiest in the world. And maybe other projects and other people have said it - or felt it - before, but none so fairly.

Silvia Flechoso. Hola, soy maricón. Oil on canvas. 73 x 54 cm. 2023. Image courtesy of the gallery.

From June 8th until June 22nd you can visit Pride and Prejudice. Carrer de Palau núm. 4. Canal Gallery space. Barcelona.