Tony McAteer is an Irish, UK-based photographer whose work draws from nature, landscape, and architecture.
Through a love of photography, paintings, and prints, as well as with the use of monochromatic and foggy visuals, McAteer succeeds in conveying a broad picture of the environment. At the same time he showcases his predilection for bold expression and sure-footed, decisive technical execution—proof of his well-formed concepts.
In the series “Spectral Pastoral,” the photographer relies almost completely on the myth and folklore predominant in the English countryside, with a twist found in the inherent, age-old relationship between man and the land. “Shot in woodlands, parks, and farmland, the series plays on the magical realism of landscape and draws heavily on the imagery of folklore, fairy tales, and myth,” McAteer explains. He goes on to say that “[the series represents] an iconography of a deep-rooted psychological attachment to the land, attuned to its enchantment, portents, and cycles.”
McAteer’s work focuses predominantly on the countryside in its unfiltered, face-value form. He creates quiet, almost timid postcards. His portfolio whispers and soothes, wrapping the viewer in a fog-weaved blanket. The artist uses photography as a form of personal therapy: “In a time of deep uncertainty and mistrust, I set out to be moved by landscape and light, rummaging and building from an intuitive, imaginative engagement with nature. An engagement that mixes the documentary, the fictional, and the personal,” says McAteer.
The artist captures the humble beauty of nature and the precise moments when he makes a connection with it. Misty fields, apples bathed in morning dew, the softness of sheep’s wool, the merry jumping of lambs, the smell of straw stored for winter, light in the window of a cozy dwelling—all these seem simultaneously lost and saved through McAteer’s portrayal. A wave of nostalgia followed by a relief that it must prevail as long as there is someone to see it.
Read our “Aberration” issue in full
The 31 artists featured in RAWGUE. Magazine’s 5th issue stray from the expected, taking untrodden paths, contemplating imperfection, solitude in its many forms, and the ongoing process of self-acceptance. Through shifting perspectives, their works explore what it means to look at oneself from the outside, as if through broken glass.
We’re a team of writers using our craft to spotlight art in its most honest form. RAWGUE. started as a bi-monthly editorial experiment where each issue’s theme is dictated by the submitted work, thus removing editorial bias from the equation and preserving a more raw approach. We focus on all forms of poetry: written, photographed, painted, drawn, and filmed.
