Austin Hearne, Slabs

Slabs

Slabs is an ongoing, growing, open-ended, and life-long photographic project. In essence, it consists of individual, used painters’ and decorators’ wallpaper pasting tables. These damaged tables are utilised to hold photographic material on their surface, the photographs from the artist’s archive spanning 30+ years. Choices as to what is brought forward, excluded, what does it all mean? And why these photographic works now? Hearne has long since grappled with the volume and value of his past and present photographic content, and issues around storage, care, and quality of the material abound. 

The world of photographic practice has rapidly changed over these three decades, from the analogue age of film and darkroom production to the swift infiltration of the digital, information, social media, and AI ages we find ourselves entangled in today. The artist’s relationship with the new methods of working and engaging with the medium has at times been fruitful, frenetic, and maddening. Frustration with new technologies and the tech giants who now have a big hand in our ways of working and even bigger eyes on our archives. 

Hearne doesn’t trust this digital age of photographic storage and ownership. It seems the users of this technology constantly have to keep a step ahead and fight to keep property accessible. Hearne values the printed photograph over the untrustworthy digital image, be these fine darkroom prints or mere desktop prints on scrappy bits of paper, and trusts that these objects will outlive the latent digital files. He finds both tiresome and enraging the technology with all its inbuilt obsolescence and the tech giants’ ever-changing monetisation of systems for iCloud upgrades, etc. To top it all off, we remember that Ireland has been infiltrated by data centres, to hold and house selfies, dick pics, and influencer inanity.

The content and themes within the photographic material on these tables vary. The numerous images bounce off each other, seemingly fitting together in some cases and clashing in others. A memory bank where some thoughts, traumas, situations, and people are remembered, truths rewritten, or buried. Hearne questions if this project is autobiographical, fact, or fiction. Flitting from the personal to the political, from self-reflection, family portraits to snarling, snarky piss-takes of an organisation (The Roman Catholic Church) he despises.

Maybe it’s an exercise in making sense of the world, the artist’s world, a world lived through the many ages of photographic practice. A world as a gay man, a queer person living through an age where the Catholic Church has lost some of its grip, kicking and screaming its way through the decriminalisation of homosexuality (1993) and two tumultuous referendums (same-sex marriage 2015 and abortion 2018) that sought to govern lives, loves, and bodies.

Austin Hearne

Born in Dublin in 1973, Austin Hearne has recently completed an episodic project, The Raymo series, which included Raymo’s Spawn (solo) at Garter Lane, Co. Waterford (2024), Requiem for Raymo (solo) at the RHA Gallery (Nov 22 to Jan 23).  (which included a weekly performance as part of the installation.) I Fucking Hate you Cardinal Raymo, part of the group show Confessions at Lismore Castle Arts (2023), and Love Letters To Cardinal Raymo at Gorey School of Art, Co. Wexford (2021). In 2025, he was commissioned by Temple Bar Galleries and Studios to make a work titled Terrible Certainty for their annual Dublin Art Book Fair. His film Whispers was shown as part of the Gaze Film Festival, where it won Best Irish Short (2022). Select solo shows include Slabs at The Complex, Dublin (2021). Select group shows include Staying With The Trouble at Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA) (2025), The Scar as Archive (Stigmata Publishing), Reference Point, London, UK (2024); WEAREFETISHISTS (curated by James Merrigan), Garter Lane, Co Waterford (2022); Speech Sounds (curated by Iarlaith Ni Fhearois), VISUAL, Co. Carlow (2022); Images Are All We Have, PhotoIreland Festival, Dublin Castle (2022); Silver/Celebrating 25 years of Kevin Kavanagh Gallery, Dublin (2019); Periodical Review #8, Pallas Projects, Dublin (2018). Austin is a founding member and one half of the post punk, goth band Satin Shadow with Glenn McQuaid. They have released 5 albums on Bandcamp. Austin Hearne is supported by the Arts Council Bursary Award 2020-2025.

Austin Hearne, Slabs
New Irish Works series 2025–27
Launch 6pm Thu 14 May 2026
Running 15 May–9 August 2026
At the International Centre for the Image