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Drawings on printed maps and installation (altar)
For Damian the first complexity is his own identity. Is he an underground musician who just happens to be a professional artist? He is the outsider who, curiously, seems to be at ease almost anywhere. He stands at the confluence of three diasporic currents, his own family Huguenot and Irish Traveller heritage, and the English Romani heritage of his wife and in-laws. Sometimes the allusions to history are mythic. Not least the cultural specificity is in the written words which are sprinkled across much of his work. Possessing a linguistic facility that would be the envy of many anthropologists, Damian, like Shakespeare's Henry V, "can talk with every Tinker in his tongue".
The works of Damian and his wife, Delaine, constantly quote from each other, take note of and respond to each other. Exhibition by exhibition, the images broaden their scope and strike deeper and harder. In the end, don't look at these pictures for what they tell you about Damian and his family; look at them for what they will tell you about yourself.
Thomas Acton
Print version
All texts and biographies
© Photos: Haupt & Binder
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* 1963 Sheffield, United Kingdom. Lives in Worthing (West-Sussex), United Kingdom.
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