Patrick Jolley

In August 1937, French dramatist and poet Antonin Artaud landed in Cobh and journeyed to Galway with the intention of returning the alleged staff of St. Patrick to its rightful owners, and, with their help, rediscovering some fundamental truths.

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A visual essay on the momentary dislocation of falling objects.

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A young woman rents a shabby one room apartment, opening the door for visions, nightmares, memories, and revenge.

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In ‘Here After’, filmed in a soon-to-be-demolished inner-city tower block on the north side of Dublin, objects disintegrate before our eyes, as though being eaten by some strange virus or invisible entity. The contents of a room disappear as the carpet beneath them is sucked into a void below. Wind haunts the empty spaces, stirring the curtains on an open window, or the wallpaper which barely clings to the damp wall. This movement is contrasted by the stillness of an undressed bed, a rectangle of light from outside creeping over its surface, pausing as if resting one last time before moving off again. The barrier between the interior and exterior is no longer intact, and nature encroaches – water dripping down walls, advancing slowly over floors, spilling dangerously from light-fittings. Light spills in too, but rather than hopeful illumination, its presence is menacing, evoking a sense of time passing too quickly, bringing premature decay.

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Burn is a narrative collage, with people and allegorical creatures. A house burns from the inside while its occupants focus on the emotional issues of their lives. The inhabitants serve life sentences with no remission in a structure of insecurity - while impending disaster is ignored. An absent minded couple sits calmly reading as fires erupt in their clothing, books and furniture. They nonchalantly swat at the flames with a stoic inattentiveness. Burn embraces an anti-narrative structure yet intense drama is found in the work. Finally a decisive act is taken leading to the possibility of a miraculous event.

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A sequence of domestic vignettes from the sunken suburbs. In the house, the stagnant atmosphere has slowly thickened to liquid. The inhabitants try to carry on as normal but beyond the borders of asphyxiation; communication is limited and expression difficult. Filmed entirely underwater in a submerged house to create an atmosphere unlike any other film.

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Seven Days ‘til Sunday, the first of three Jolley/Reynolds film collaborations, is a sequence of short episodes in which headless figures fall through the architecture of New York, incinerate in their own living room, detonate on wet ground. This strange depiction of anonymous, marginalised individuals meeting their end amid relentless urbanisation provides the imagery, but beyond the particularisation of their fates ‘the narrative stands for the tragi-comedy of life itself in a remote, indifferent universe.’

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In August 1937, French dramatist and poet Antonin Artaud landed in Cobh and journeyed to Galway with the intention of returning the alleged staff of St. Patrick to its rightful owners, and, with their help, rediscovering some fundamental truths.

Open details →