Tony Corey’s collection of portraits documenting the mise en scène of artists at work is infused with a psychological insight, writes Brian McAvera
People are fascinated by workrooms, whether they are the lairs of writers or the studios of visual artists. Tony Corey has been photographing both writers and artists in their workplaces since 1988. He first started on this course when the present writer curated an exhibition of Northern Irish sculpture in both the interior and exterior area of Lurgan College of Further Education in 1988. At the suggestion of photographer Victor Sloan, who was then working in the college, Corey started to photograph the artists and their work, and this rapidly led him to the notion of taking photographs of them in their studios. About eighteen months later, when I was preparing two exhibitions for Liverpool (a survey of Irish photography for the Open Eye Gallery, and a survey of contemporary Irish art for the Bluecoat Arts Centre), it occurred to me that the perfect complement to these exhibitions would be another exhibition focusing on images of artists in their studio. And so it came about that Tony Corey, for the best part of two years, travelled throughout Ireland photographing artists and writers and this work eventually became the exhibition Door into the Dark, which was exhibited alongside the other exhibitions in Liverpool
