Culture

Stephen Bradley Vital Riots

Alain Chivilò presents a virtual solo exhibition dedicated to the photographer Stephen S T Bradley. “Vital Riots” testify in five shots the long period of riots by Irish Republican Army (IRA), also called Provisional Irish Republican Army, among cities of Northern Ireland, Ulster, as for example Belfast, Londonderry – Derry, Dungiven, Newry, Dungannon through demonstrations, gun battles, rioting, house burnings against, according to the different points of view, UK and British Army. The conflict was primarily nationalistic and political, started off and fuelled by historical events and facts.
Art critic and curator Alain visited Belfast and Nother ireland in those years, living the atmosphere of the period.
Even if here i asked riots photos, Stephen S T Bradley has a gorgeous portfolio of photographs.
His clouds, immortalized in the instant of the sky and of the landscape, are irrational forms divided between dream and reality. Their shape and their light stands out in areas of the soul which every emotion and sensation is possible and perceptible. Everything revolves within an incessant flow of colors recalling Turner’s pictorial impressions. Each shot is an allegory of the contemporaneity we are living in. The human being is not necessary, because the nature photographed by Stephen S T Bradley is vital and wild in its intimate and archaic primitiveness.

For furthers info about these photos, please contact me here in the form of the website.

1.
Stephen S T Bradley, Rioter using a catapult to fire on British army soldiers, during rioting in the Bogside area of Derry, Northern Ireland, during the final days of IRA hunger striker Bobby Sands. Photo taken in 1981. Limited edition of 35, print size cm 51×38, inch 20,07×14,96 – euro 1250,00

2.
Stephen S T Bradley, Rioters pictured in front of a hijacked and burning vehicle, during rioting in the Bogside area of Derry, Northern Ireland, during the final days of IRA hunger striker Bobby Sands. Photo taken in 1981. Limited edition of 35, print size cm 51×38, inch 20,07×14,96 – euro 1250,00

3.
Stephen S T Bradley, A soldier, not much older than the boys he is walking past, during an army foot patrol in the republican New Lodge area of Belfast, Northern Ireland. Photo taken in 1980. Limited edition of 35, print size cm 51×38, inch 20,07×14,96 – euro 1250,00

4.
Stephen S T Bradley, Young women bang bin lids on the Falls Road, Belfast, to let people in the neighbourhood know the British army were raiding the area looking for IRA members. Photograph taken during the IRA hunger strikes in 1981. Limited edition of 35, print size cm 51×38, inch 20,07×14,96 – euro 1250,00

5.
Stephen S T Bradley, Young teenage boys picture wearing masks and in front of hijacked burning vehicles in the Divis area of Belfast, Northern Ireland, during the final days of IRA hunger striker Bobby Sands. Photo taken in 1981. Limited edition of 35, print size cm 51×38, inch 20,07×14,96 – euro 1250,00

by Alain Chivilò