Ishmael Claxton • Broken Hoof
2025 • New Mexico Veterans Visual Storytelling Lab
-
Broken Hoof is a deeply personal photographic exploration of family, identity, and transformation. Developed during the Visual Storytelling Lab, the project focuses on three generations of women: my daughter Nancy, her mother Violet, and her grandmother Marina. Through their connection, I reflect on the complexities of heritage, motherhood, and the quiet resilience passed from one generation to the next.
The series began with a simple question: What does family mean to me? My life has undergone a profound shift, from the pace and unpredictability of freelancing in U.S. cities to a slower, more rooted existence shaped by nature and fatherhood. My daughter became both my anchor and my lens through which to see the world anew.
Broken Hoof continues themes present in earlier works such as Capall Gang and a personal tribute to my late uncle, but it moves inward. It is less about cultural subgroups and more about the emotional terrain of home, growth, and generational memory. The title evokes both fragility and strength. How something once broken can still move forward with grace.
Light is central to the narrative. It shifts throughout the project, echoing the emotional arcs of childhood, care, and time. From dreamlike softness to sharp illumination, each image becomes a passage through change.
At its core, Broken Hoof is about how we carry history within us, and how love across generations can create continuity, healing, and hope in the midst of transformation.
About the Artist
Ishmael & Nancy Claxton
© Violet Ogden
Ishmael Claxton • Born in New York and having lived across the United States—including California, New Mexico, Colorado, Texas, North Carolina, Florida, Maine, Pennsylvania, Central America, and Morocco— Ishmael Claxton has developed a diverse and deeply informed artistic voice. He has embraced photography as a powerful medium for expression and storytelling. Known for tackling thought-provoking themes, Ishmael has earned recognition as a professional visual artist whose work confronts pressing social and cultural issues.
Through acclaimed series such as Migration/Integration and Capall Gang, he challenges viewers to reflect on the world around them, using photography as a mirror to contemporary society.
Ishmael’s work has been widely exhibited both in Ireland and internationally. In 2023, he participated in 39 exhibitions, including prestigious venues like Outset Gallery among others. He also played a pivotal role in launching two galleries: Ardgillan Castle Gallery—where he debuted his Migration/Integration series—and Round Rabbit Studios showing his Moroccan story. In 2022, he presented a solo show at Gallery X, followed by an exhibition at Round Rabbit in 2023. In 2024, he collaborated with conductor Berginald Rash on From Antiquity to Modernity, a multimedia performance combining live music and visual storytelling at the National Concert Hall. That same year, he unveiled Echoes of Elegance: Claxton's Beistegui Ball Exhibition at the Irish Georgian Society, a visual reimagining of the grandeur of a 1950s ball.
Ishmael’s accolades include the AIR Residency at the Irish Photo Museum, the TLP Editions Award for Dead Zoo in Blue (2024), and shortlistings for both the Taylor Wessing Portrait Prize and the Royal Photographic Society's Portrait Award. In 2025, he was selected for the prestigious Shutter Hub OPEN exhibition at Cambridge University’s Alison Richard Building, and was named a participant in Arles Art-ICON 2025, an international showcase of leading contemporary photographers.
instagram.com/ishmaelclaxtonphotos