Danny Treacy
In the series ‘Them’ Treacy is completely disguised and seemingly absent from the final image. Through a labour-intensive costuming process that involves deconstructing and re-creating existing pieces of clothing, he contrives to conceal himself until he disappears. The process hides all traces of the artist’s gender and race, and in some cases it is not possible to tell whether he is a human or an animal. It could be argued that the photographs are in fact the antithesis of self-portraiture as the self evaporates into a created void. In fact the images pose the question of where the self is located, and whether, through subterfuge, it is possible to eliminate it altogether. For Treacy the answer is yes.
The portraits intentionally obfuscate aspects of the artist’s identity; they allude to displacement and absence, aptly illustrating the dissolution of – not only the artist – but also the human – a practice that can be traced throughout the history of self-portraiture. The masked creatures loom out of a black void to be photographed in a forensic, ‘objective’manner, evocative of ethnographical portraits of others during the nineteenth century. The clothes, completely transformed from their original function, become souvenirs or trophies of a hunt. Clothing becomes Treacy’s skin; often stained and worn, the garments metamorphose and mould around his body. This transformation, which should seem revolting, is strangely erotic and intimate.
‘When locating the clothing, I take on the role of explorer. That is not to say I wear a pith helmet; more that when I am alone in an environment which I sense has a furtive history –what I term a “fertile ground” – the clothing becomes totally coded in its context and ceases to be mere clothing. The humans who once occupied it become alien and I am left to piece the clothing together based only on a sense of its charged.’
Them #1
Them #2
Them #12
Them #20