Danny Treacy

Them

September 2 - October 3, 2010

Winner of the 2009 Man Photography Prize, awarded by the Royal College of Art, London

London-based artist Danny Treacy searches his surroundings for discarded clothing to construct suggestive, haunting costumes. Treacy then dresses himself in what he creates and, by making striking life-sized self-portraits, he becomes "Them."

The "suits" he fabricates are born out of the discovery of what's been left behind by others, and ultimately allow Treacy to become something uncertain: evocative figures which seemingly transgress race, gender, and even reality.

"Somewhere in the process of collecting the clothing, of de-construction, recreating, stitching, wearing and standing in the clothing, each stage done by myself, I feel that in the final image I disappear, not revealing anything of myself, the antithesis of self-portraiture."

Danny Treacy lives and works in London. He received an MA in Fine Art Photography from the Royal College of Art, London, in 2002, and completed an artist-in-residency at The Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, in 2008. Treacy's work has been exhibited widely in Europe, Canada, and the US, including "Theatres of the Real," PhotoMuseum Antwerp, Belgium; “New Photography in Britain," Galleria Civica de Modena, Italy; and "To Be Continued," The Kunsthalle Helsinki, Finland. In 2009, Treacy received the 2009 Man Photography Prize for "Them," and was the inaugural recipient of the Jerwood/Portfolio Photography Award in 2003. His work is featured in the publications Auto Focus: The Self-Portrait in Contemporary Photography (Thames & Hudson, 2010) and Vitamin Ph: New Perspectives in Photography (Phaidon, 2006).