"Searching For Evidence of Controlled Demolition at The Rose Garden, Tralee, Co. Kerry" Collage

Born Newry Co. Down N.Ireland 1961. Widely studied for traditional (paper and scalpel) photomontage and photocollage, also works in other media. "One of the most significant Irish artists of his generation" (Irish Gallery of Photography) "a national treasure" (Roy Foster, Yeats' biographer & Professor of Irish History at Oxford) Made paradoxically beautiful and comical photomontages based on his own documentary photos from Irish 'Troubles' in period 1983-'93. Photollage series 'IRELANTIS', 1995-'05; "Searching For Evidence.." series collages 2007-'09; "WHAT'S WRONG? with The Consolations of Genius" 2010/2011 Public sculpture and other commissions, including video for Sony Music / Super Furry Animals, stage design, interested in everything. 2007-8 with landscape architect Desmond FitzGerald designed the Omagh Bomb Memorial. 2011 the National Library of Ireland Photographic Archive acquired 600 photographs from Hillen taken in the North of Ireland between 1979 and 1990, permanently, as The Seán Hillen Collection. A major exhibition of the photos in the Archive Gallery Sept-Dec 2012 broke records with 16,800 visitors. In April 2013 The History Press Ireland published "Melancholy Witness- Images of The Troubles" a book of The Sean Hillen Collection photographs. It was republished in the US in 2014 and as a paperback in 2017 www.seanhillen.com www.irelantis.com