Frankie McAllister - Bio

I am a northern Irish photographer, based in London, currently working on a project about the impact of the Northern Irish protocol on the borderlands of Ireland, using the landscape as metaphor (Dividing Lines - artificial constructs), a book of the project is on it's way. Also a founder member of FIKA book & zine, a new photography book collective (more on this to follow). I have exhibited both nationally and internationally, from London to Wales and the USA, Greece, France, and the Netherlands.

But what it's really all about: a sense of the outsider looking in, ‘outsiderness’. It permeates all my work, pretty much whatever the subject. It’s not judgmental - there is connection and empathy but it comes from a place (unchosen) outside, observing, intuiting, noticing and often literally sympathizing. I put it down to a peripatetic childhood, arriving too often in new places, the new girl in school. You assess your new circumstances, the groupings and connections between your new friends and you learn very quickly to adapt, like a chameleon.

You adopt the customs and mannerisms of others in order to fit in but of course you never really do, it’s in appearance only, you’re still on the outside still watching, so intent on working out how you should appear, that you forget who you are. Like the background to my early years, my images change in subject – there's an inherent assumption of change, from place to place, school to school. In photography, I switch regularly between landscape and incidental, to still life and abstract, and back again. To me, they are not really different - in all there is the same underlying current, I’m still looking for the same thing, the same mood, the same feeling. It’s rarely people, because as an outsider I would feel intrusive. I am not one of them, I am almost a ghost or a cipher.

Publications and Online Galleries

fLIP Magazine April 2023 - Book review

fLIP Magazine December 2022 - Book review & image

Geographies of Print/ Territories of Practice October 2022

Shutterhub Book 'On the Road' July 2022

Interview 'Culturamas' online arts magazine April 2022

Cover Image RPS Women In Photo 'WE ARE' March 2022

fLIP Magazine December 2021 - feature article on 'UNLOCKED' exhibition

fLIP Magazine March 2021 - Barriers (image)

Rankin's 2020 - image published

fLIP Magazine December 2020 – Solitary (Feature: Ethics in Travel Photography)

fLIP Magazine December 2020 – Solitary (cover)

fLIP Magazine, August 2020 – Abstracts/Wonder

AOP Magazine - lockdown feature

Members Feature Interview and images RPS Women In Photo, March 2020

fLIP Magazine, Dec 2019 – feature "Pilgrimage as an Act of Resistance”

Vogue Italia Photographer Gallery 2020

Aesthetica Magazine Summer edition listing “Manipulated Landscapes” 2019

fLIP Magazine, Dec 2018 – feature “Lives Interrupted”

Exhibitions and Awards

Shortlisted for IPE165 - 2023

Royal Academy Summer show June to August 2023

Attention:Vitality, Espacio Gallery Jan 2023

Salon 22 - Photofusion exhibition - December 2022 to February 2023

ND Awards November 2022 - fine art/abstract

Chromatic Awards November 2022

IPA Honourable Mention special category - September 2022

IPE64 Shortlist September 2022

LIP Chronicles, Online exhibition and newspaper November 2021

'Strange Familiars' Espacio Gallery - October 2021

'UNLOCKED' Public art installation Ealing Town Centre September 2021

'Respair' Waterloo Festival, St John's Church Waterloo June 2021

16th Julia Margaret Camera Awards Honourable Mention 2021

Shutterhub Postcards from Europe exhibition 2021

ND Awards 2020 – Honourable mention

Chromatic Awards 2020- Honourable mention

London Independent Photography Covid Chronicles Online exhibition Nov 2020

Aesthetica Magazine/Printswap, Exhibition Foley Gallery New York

Festival Pil'Ours, Shutterhub, St Gilles Croix de Vie

RPS Print Exhibition, Lauderdale House, Feb 2020

Chromatic Awards – Bronze 2019

ND Awards 2019 – Honourable mention

British Photography Awards shortlist 2020

Salon 19, Photofusion 2019

'Everyday Delight' - Free Space Project for Shutterhub, 2019

International Photography Awards, honourable mention 2019

London Independent Photography 31st Annual Show, 2019

'Home' Ealing BEAT, the Rickyard, 2019

‘Art on a Postcard’ Artists Charity auction, Spitalfields

'Home' Gallery at Home, Monmouthshire, 2019

'Time to Think, Festival Pil'ours, St Gilles Croix de Vie, France 2019

'Thought Atlas, Espacio Gallery, 2019

'Street/Form' POW!WOW!, Rotterdam, 2019

'Factual Enigma', CLIP, Espacio Gallery 2019,

RPS Print Exhibition, Lauderdale House, 2019

Shutterhub Open, 5&33 Gallery, Amsterdam, 2019