Darren Regan Visiting Lecturer

Darren Regan was quietly spoken, and I think quite a shy young man. It was difficult to hear him and the inflection in his voice was non existent, which made the whole experience of listening to him a bit of a chore. His work was contemporary and did not particularly appeal to me but had he been a little more enthusiastic and a little less shy, I would have enjoyed his lecture more. There was a humorous side to his work but this didn't come across very well.
He began by showing us his early work which was of more interest to me than his later pieces. His BA Series of clothing hung on trees in the midst of a misty landscape, had a haunting feel to it. He said that it was a reaction to his background growing up in a Christian Family and of leaving it behind to embark on a new chapter in his life. I found this quite moving. It was a difficult subject for him to discuss, he said that he rarely talks about this work which was unfortunate because I felt that this particular work would have captured more of my imagination.

His next work were multiple exposure prints, again shot in the landscape. I could see what he was trying to achieve experimenting with the contrasts and allowing the camera to pick up details as he moved it from side to side. But personally I wasn't that enamoured with the work.

One of the things he spoke of did resonate with me. He said that it wasn't until he left college that he began to experiment with Studio Lighting and the Large Format Camera. I was a little relieved when I heard this as I thought that I was one of a very few students who avoids using this equipment because of some kind of fear of it. So his admittance of this fact gave me a little hope!

He went on to talk about his more recent work, shooting images of stuffed animals. It was the idea behind the work that struck me more than the actual images themselves, which I did not like. The idea of stuffed animal doesn't appeal to me at all because of the connotations of people keeping their "pets" or "hunting trophies" in their homes as opposed to giving them back to the land. But his idea behind the work is in the context of "What is natural" and "What is not"..... our perceptions of "natural" like everything else are limited in our knowledge of a subject. He referenced Squirrels. There are now more grey squirrels in the UK than red squirrels, and the general consensus is that the red squirrel is more "natural" than the grey squirrel, when in fact it could be an evolutionary factor that has seen the growth of more grey squirrels in recent years. This did make me think about my own idea of what is "natural." I have mourned the passing of the red squirrel thinking that it is the fault the grey squirrel being brought into our country,but have to admit that it could indeed be a consequence of societies need to construct more building thereby making the countryside appear more "grey." This may be a nonsense way of thinking but I think I see what he was getting at!

By the end of the lecture I'm sorry to say that I was incredibly bored and fidgety. I had had enough of looking at images of stuffed birds perched on a stick placed in front of a mirror, and I am bored writing about it so I am sorry but I cant write any more!