De Profundis: From the Depths @ Warrington Museum & Art Gallery

De Profundis: From the Depths, currently on show at Warrington Museum & Art Gallery, is a solo exhibition from photographer and filmmaker Pete Regan that explores the artist’s journey through cyclothymia (considered a milder form of bipolar disorder). Regan sets out to capture the breadth and depth of his experience and says he aims his installation of light, film, text and audio towards his younger self. In his early twenties, Regan would spend months in bed isolated by the darkest of depressions, and, he says, it was only by way of a camera he was given that he began to explore the world and find beauty again.

Monastic voices reverberate through the corridor as you enter the exhibition. Images are scattered across the wall, sprouting, volcano-like, amid neon tubes of lighting in red, yellow and blue. It’s a feast for the senses, but the cumulative effect is not of sensory overload. Regan is considered and strategic in his use of colour; the black in the black-and-white images is the deepest black. He also plays with the positive/negative duality of photography by offering us the whitest of white pictures – ghost-like, cold, almost eerie. Also on display are swathes of colour in all its glaring, night-infused glory. The neon tubes of lighting build up the mood and tension of the whole exhibition and are reminicent of Vincent Gallo’s Buffalo 66, whose palette of muted Buffalo colours (red, blue and white) only add to the sense of melancholy in the film.

People, in Regan’s images, are transformed by this otherworldly light and colour. A woman with a 1920s haircut is profiled and bathed in the deepest of reds. A young man with an intriguing but slightly menacing smile is given the bluest of neon to inhabit. Faceless people gather in underpasses and at lonely bars. Empty tables protest that no-one dines at them. Religious motifs often appear, suggestive of burden and a certain heaviness but also redolent of the iconic cemetery sequence in Easy Rider.

Even though these alterations in mood are not drug-induced, they are suggestive of altered states. All Regan’s images suggest a narrative in which inhabiting or re-entering into the world is not necessarily a smooth or comfortable transition.

Several films are included in the exhibition, shown in conjunction with music varying in mood and pace. In a slideshow of the artist’s childhood there are, again, hints of the religious – a first communion, the ancient glory of Roman ruins savaged by a bleak sun. The use of the circle in the slideshow re-appears as a motif in the circular pictures of the seasons. In one work, the viewer contemplates the gentle breeze slowly swaying the top of trees. The effect is soothing, almost like the visual equivalent of mindfulness, but with darker overtones. This work demonstrates the artist's strong pull towards the cinematic.

Signalling the end of the exhibition, a neon yellow sign that reads ‘Hope’ is situated next to a black-and-white image taken in New York. The image stands out as it has a more photojournalistic feel to it than the other, more oblique, works on display. In the foreground, a taxi exhorts us with the maxims ‘EVERY DAY COUNTS’ and ‘RESPECT YOURSELF… LIVE WELL’. In the chaos of the background – smoke, high-rise blocks and harsh sunlight – it could be difficult to live up to these exhortations, but the image seems strangely hopeful.

De Profundis does away with what could be described as a dreaded fear of feeling in contemporary art. One of the most dehumanising aspects of depression is the feeling of not being able to connect with others, but through his work Regan connects to that which is human in everyone – woe, darkness, pain, joy, exuberance, hopelessness, hope. His photographic pilgrimage – and the restorative power of walking and finding these places – is potent, and a way for Regan to confront his experiences head on. In my view, making this public and inviting the viewer to witness and participate makes an important contribution to combatting the stigma around mental distress.