Ciara Duffy: Down, Down, Baby

Ciara Duffy: Down, Down, Baby by Aline SmithsonMay 5, 2017

©Ciara Duffy

Look how absurd I was when I was young’ forestalls cruel criticism, but it falsifies history…. Those emotions were real when we felt them. Why should we be more ashamed of them than of the indifference of old age?— Graham Greene, A Sort of Life

Photographer Ciara Duffy has just released a monograph, Down, Down, Baby, published by Aint Bad Publishing. It reflects the arrogance of youth, when every experience is worth exploring and documenting (be it repulsive or vulgar or lovely) and the humor and fascination in the odd juxtapositions of ordinary life. Ciara has created a project with no filter, nothing is concealed and we are brought into her landscape of youthful pursuits where societal norms are out the window.

Ciara Duffy lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. She received her BFA in Photography in 2012 from The Savannah College of Art and Design and her MFA in Imaging Arts from The Rochester Institute of Technology in 2016. Ciara operates as a freelance commercial photographer in the New York area.

Front cover, Down, Down, Baby, published by Aint Bad Publishing

The series, Down, Down, Baby is a visual diary, a documentation of the transitory period of one’s youth. A culmination of eight years’ worth of photographs, Ms. Duffy’s MFA thesis work illustrates moments of ferality, desire, intimacy, and recklessness. The characters in this series exist as a symbol for an undeniable attitude within youth culture. This way of living defies the logic of refined sensibility, political correctness, and good taste.

Ms. Duffy predominantly explores the seedy underbelly of Savannah, GA and New York City, where repulsion and attraction coincide recurrently, mutually accepting of other another. Here, the artist plays on this concept and pushes it further. Beautifully vibrant, saturated landscapes are mixed in with depictions of over indulgence, blood, inflamed flesh, urination and intoxication. The push of the vulgar behavior and the pull of the loveliness of the characters and backdrop throughout the series builds and adds to the narrative.