Richie Fahey’s art
is trapped in an era gone by.
When men were men,
cars were made of steel,
women loved to hate them both
and a stiff drink was the answer to everything.

Sound familiar?

Richie Fahey is not just a photographer. And he’s not exactly an illustrator. He mixes several mediums together in such a way that you’re not sure where one stopped and another started. But then again, you could probably say the same thing about his subject matter. It’s hard to tell if the image is modern or vintage. Old or new. Contemporary or old school.

One thing is for sure about Fahey’s work: he puts himself into it. Not just spiritually, but he really puts himself into his work. We won’t say which featured piece includes a cameo – you’ll have to decide for yourself. But, as we stared long and hard at each piece, we came to realize that only someone who has actually found themselves in the situations Richie illustrates so well could actually do just that.

That’s when it hit us – Richie’s work is so powerful and moving because there’s a backstory to each one. Every piece he creates is painfully real and dredged to the surface of his creative mind before it is interpreted into the canvas. Or the enlarger. Or the color print. Where reality and fantasy collide is up to you, the viewer. But that’s the beauty of it. Richie creates for the viewer a window – a slice of a window – into a moment or story filled with holes that only he or she can fill in and seal up with their own life experiences.

Is it only a tormented soul that could conjure up such riveting and arresting visuals? Is it the mind only loosely hanging on to reality for convenience that can create images so haunting? Well, that’s for one to decide for oneself. But know that Richie Fahey has alot more in him to get out. Whether his work is autobiographical or one of the great forms of storytelling, it gives reason to pause.

And isn’t that what great art, in its most basic form, should do?