Enda Bowe’s work is concerned with storytelling and the search for light and beauty in the ordinary. He presents his work through exhibition and the publication of photographic monographs. Influences in his work include writers Carson McCullers and John McGahern, poet John Glenday, and directors Lynne Ramsey, Eve Arnold and Lenny Abrahamson.
To date Enda’s work has been exhibited in galleries and museums including the Victoria & Albert Museum , London, the Douglas Hyde Gallery, Dublin, the National Portrait Gallery, London, Fotohof, Salzburg,The Visual Centre Of Contemporary Art, Ireland, and Red Hook Gallery, New York. Enda recently received the Taylor Wessing Portrait Second Prize 2018 at the National Portrait Gallery, London. His collection of work ‘At Mirrored River’ received the international Solas Photography Award. The exhibition at the Visual of Contemporary Art, Ireland, was nominated and long listed for the Prix Pictet Award 2017 and the Deutsche Borse Foundation Photography Prize 2017. At Mirrored River was self published in 2016. Enda’s first monograph ‘Kilburn Cherry’ published by J&J Books received the Birgit Skiold Artist Award 2014, Whitechapel Gallery London. His third book, ‘This Thing I Want, I Know Not What’, inspired by Carson McCuller’s ‘The Heart is a Lonely Hunter’, was published by Paper Tiger Books in Sept 2018. His new forthcoming book ‘Bird To The Air’, will be published by PlumPlum Books in summer 2019.
Enda is from Ireland and lives and works in London.
Clapton Blossom
Set on a housing estate in east London, this project focuses on the positivity and vibrance of multi-cultural society on a day when walls are been built between nations and people who are in search of a better life and survival are having their movement prevented, a day when the emigrant is not being celebrated nor encouraged.
The opposite is true, multiculturalism is a celebration of life, a celebration of the beauty and heart of humanity, of the goodness that is within us all, a celebration of our brothers and sisters.
Inspired by the late Polish Director, Krzysztof Kieślowsk’s Dekalog, a series of ten short films. The series is about ten different people from one housing estate in Warsaw and illustrates how although each character may not know each other and is independent of each other, their lives become subtly intertwined as they face emotional dilemmas that are at once deeply personal and universally human.
As an added layer to this inspiration and to support the idea of new beginnings and the vibrance of multicultural community, a cherry blossom tree symbolizes the connecting point at the center of the estate to portray the overlapping lives of local people who pass by the tree each day, or view it from their windows.
The beauty of nature enhances our lives each day, it connects us, it is given to us all, it does not ask who we are nor where we are from. In recognizing the beauty that surrounds us, we recognize the beauty in ourselves and each other.
The transience of the blossom has often been associated with mortality-new beginnings, hope and endings. The blossom symbolizes the immigrant, his/her new beginnings, the beauty and color of people, of possibilities to come, of hope for a brighter day when all nationalities unite and celebrate the beauty and life in each other, and to share our world as nature supports us and shares its beauty with us everyday.
To view more of Enda Bowe’s work please visit his website.