Stuart O’Sullivan’s series of images were made at homes in Pennsylvania and Vermont belonging to the family of O’Sullivan’s wife. While A Shared History primarily explores the relationship of his wife and her grandmother it speaks volumes of a long family history and the future to come.

O’Sullivan continues to make images of interiors and landscapes that become portraits of their inhabitants. In this case he photographs the homes of his in-laws and reveals a complex story that goes back to the earliest European settlers in America and further back to Europe. It is a story of relationships and marriages changing history and a conflicted family dynamic. In his photographs are the family’s belongings and property that reveal privilege, absence and connections to a distant past. Furthermore, the youth and old age of one generation and the youth of a younger generation are documented in O’Sullivan’s noted style of “measured but unapologetic affection”.

The show consists of ten large scale images selected from the larger body of work. The entire series of images are available for viewing at the gallery and will be published in O’Sullivan’s second monograph by Nazraeli Press in early 2008. The work can also be viewed in advance of the exhibition.