About

Lorraine Tuck is from County Galway, and much of her work has been shaped by Connemara. Her mother and grandparents were born in Recess, where her grandmother still lives, and Lorraine spent much of her childhood exploring the countryside of the West of Ireland. An early interest in art history led her to painting and drawing, before she took up photography in 1994 after buying her first camera. By the age of 15, she was developing her own photographs in a darkroom she built in her mother’s kitchen, working at night while the family slept. In 1999, she began her formal studies and later completed a BA (Hons) in Documentary Photography at the University of South Wales, Newport. Her first major series, Limbo, also known as The Children’s Burial Grounds, explored the unconsecrated resting places of stillborn infants and became her best-known work. Part of the Limbo series was acquired by the National University of Ireland Galway. Lorraine later completed a body of work begun in the late 1990s on the former Galway to Clifden railway line; selected photographs were purchased by the OPW and published in the fine art book Whistle Blowing.

Lorraine later settled in the West of Ireland and raised a family. Over the course of ten years, she created an important photographic series about her family, titled Unusual Gestures.

This major series was widely exhibited, including an international tour produced by Photo Museum Ireland. It premiered at Galway International Arts Festival and was also shown at the Regional Cultural Centre in Letterkenny and Roscommon Arts Centre. Selected works were later presented at VISUAL Carlow and in an exhibition at Haus am Kleist Park, Berlin as part of an international Irish Tour supported and produced by Photo Museum Ireland. Selected works from ‘Unusual Gestures’ features at Source Photographic review 102: The Unsayable.

Lorraine has exhibited widely, Photo Museum Ireland including Galway International Arts Festival, Tulca Festival of Visual Arts, Safehouse Gallery Belfast, Clifden Arts Festival, Galway City Museum, Linenhall Arts Centre, Dunamaise Arts Centre, National University of Ireland Galway, Railway Record Society in Heuston, Dublin, Royal Hibernian Academy,Arts Festival, Visual Carlow and Brick Lane Studios London, Haus am Kleist Park, Berlin.