The Exhibitionist | 13 | I See a Darkness

The Last Place
19 February – 15 March | Opening: 19 February at 7.30pm Lorraine Walsh
Custom House Studios, Westport Quay, Co. Mayo

Custom House Studios are pleased to present The Last Place, a multidisciplinary exhibition by Kildare artist Lorraine Walsh. The exhibition will be formally opened by Dr. Caroline Fitzgerald, poet and member of Westport Writers, with a reading of the poem that inspired the title of the show, on Thursday 19th February at 7.30pm. All Welcome. The exhibition continues every day until March 15th .

The exhibition explores our perception of and connection to the natural world and includes painting, drawing and installation of found materials. The paintings in the exhibition depict silent landscapes – patches of wildness on the perimeter of towns, trees on a motorway verge at night – places that define the edges between nature and culture. The artist evokes a world remote from us using the qualities of paint and materials such as bone, burned branches and feathers. This body of work is also inspired by journeys into unknown lands told by the first Western explorers to discover them. The accounts of Cabeza de Vaca (1530) and others tell both of the conquest of nature and of the inability to conquer it, revealing a nature that is beautiful but dark; a perception that weaves its way into Walsh’s body of work.

The title of the exhibition is borrowed from a poem chosen for its exploration of themes similar to those running through the exhibition. The poem tells the journey of the never-ending movement of humans towards the promise of the West. In the poem, the humans eventually come to an impasse – a mountain – where it is the voice of the landscape itself that speaks: “This is the last place. There is nowhere else to go”.

www.lorrainewalshwork.wordpress.com | www.customhousestudios.ie

13 February – 20 March | Opening: 13 February at 6pm
Galway Arts Centre, 47 Lower Dominick Street, Galway

Galway Arts Centre is pleased to present Asylum Archive, an exhibition by Dublin based visual artist and researcher Vukasin Nedeljkovic. The exhibition will open at 6pm on Friday 13th February and run until 20th March 2015. A panel discussion organised with Create: The development agency for collaborative arts will take place at 6pm on Tuesday March 3rd in Galway Arts Centre. The panel will include Vukasin Nedeljkovic; artist Dr. Anthony Haughey; Dr. Charlotte McIvor Lecturer in Theatre & Drama studies, NUI Galway; Dr. Anne Mulhall, Lecturer in School of English, Drama and Film, UCD; and Megs Morley, independent curator. The text ‘The Absences of the Asylum Archive: Making Reflective Space’ by Charlotte McIvor will also be available at the exhibition and on www.asylumarchive.com andwww.create-ireland.ie

The exhibition, featuring video, photography and found objects, unpacks the structures of the Direct Provision system in Ireland. The absence of human subjects in the artworks encourages viewers to examine the traces, structures and architectural spaces of this system. The formal compositions of the photographic work and clean presentation of the found objects raise the question of what is being represented, or presented to the viewer. Traces of individual presence through marks within spaces, discarded objects and attempts at personalisation of spaces coexist with the deliberately anonymous spaces and the artist’s decision to represent the structure of direct provision through the absence of people.

The subject of direct provision in Ireland is contentious; with research and lobby groups presenting consistent evidence of dehumanisation of asylum seekers in Ireland. The confinement, segregation and categorisation of people seeking asylum in Ireland has led to serious inequalities and discriminations, in full view of society. Rather than ‘Asylum Archive’ looking at asylum seekers as victims with a story that presents them as other to the citizens of Ireland, the exhibition instead presents the structure that people are siphoned into, a system that is supported and witnessed by the Irish government.

 

Memento Mori
16 February – 1 March | Opening Reception: 20 February, 7-9 pm
Signal Arts Centre, 1 Albert Ave, Bray, Co. Wicklow
Gallery Opening Hours: Monday to Friday: 10am -1pm/2pm – 5pm, Saturday/Sunday: 10am – 5pm

Signal Arts Centre is delighted to be exhibiting works by talented artist Vicki Sutherland.

Vicki draws inspiration from memory and forensic traces left behind in nature. Childhood memories of searching for fossilised ferns has led her to create porcelain ‘fossils’ by encasing plants in porcelain and firing them until all organic traces are obliterated and only the fragile porcelain skeletons remain. Vicki is also fascinated by the Victorian habit of placing remembrances and taxidermy under glass domes. Her Memento Mori Series celebrates the fleeting nature of life, with ghostly floral porcelain arrangements under glass domes.

The naked-raku fired, porcelain series, Memento Mori is inspired by cave art from millennia ago and symbolizes man’s attempt to have total control over his environment.

www.signalartscentre.ie

The Romantic Tragedy
2 February – 16 March
Birr Theatre & Arts Centre, Birr, Co. Offaly
Open: Mon – Fri, 1.00 – 5.30pm

In this new body of work Ann explores this theme which she feels is visited time and time again from ancient legends such as Tóraíocht Dhiarmada agus Gráinne, to Shakespeare’s ‘Romeo and Juliet’ and Emily Bronte’s ‘Wuthering Heights’ – stories which are immortalised through their intense passion and drama. The drawn image is at the essence of her work and the capacity to visually narrate across language and age barriers is integral to her work as an artist.

www.birrtheatre.com

17 February – 10 March | Opening: 17 February at 7pm
Toradh Gallery, Ashbourne Cultural Centre, Ashbourne, Co. Meath

Meath County Council Arts Office is delighted to present Time and Place by Marc Corrigan in the Toradh Gallery, Ashbourne Library & Cultural Centre, Ashbourne, Co. Meath. The exhibition will be opened by musician Cat Dowling at 7pm on Tuesday 17th February 2015.

Time and Place is a new exhibition of oil paintings by Marc Corrigan. They continue on in the Impressionist tradition; both in style and in concept. Impressionist paintings were a direct reaction to the advent of the camera; quickly painted studies of the artist’s environment, often depicting and titled after a specific time and place.

These Neo-Impressionist paintings are also in response to the camera and to specific times and places. However in this case it is studying how cinema has recreated and dealt with particular events or locations.

Based on film stills (often establishing shots at the beginning of movies), these paintings depict specific times and places as they are viewed by cinema. Some are sets, some are shot long after the date they claim to be, and often somewhere completely different. One painting represents a place that only exists in the world of movies. They are painted with type over them, as they appear in each specific film, informing the viewer just when and where the painting is set – or at least where they claim to be set.

Wasteland
12 February – 21 March
Mermaid County Wicklow Arts Centre, Main Street, Bray
Opening hours: Monday to Saturday, 10am – 6pm

Wasteland will transform the gallery into a hypothetical place, an absurd playground overflowing with salvaged objects, postal packages, sculptures and debris. Nestled amidst its poetic surrounds the story of the artists’ attempts to dismantle and relocate a public park to a new location also unfolds. This exhibition explores the institutional rules and regulations that pervade our lives, and what happens when things slip through the cracks. Wastelandmarks the first collaboration between Czech artists Eva Ko?átková and Dominik Lang.

Project Arts Centre on Tour | Originally Commissioned by Project Arts Centre and curated by Tessa Giblin. Supported by The Arts Council / An Chomhairle Ealaíon Touring and Dissemination of Work Scheme.

www.mermaidartscentre.ie/exhibitions/details/wasteland1

20 February at 11amLeah Smith was the winner of Talbot Gallery & Studios Most Promising Graduate Award 2014 for her performance piece at IADT graduate exhibition. As part of her residency Leah’s performance project will take place in three different locations forming a triangle around the gallery, in doing so bringing art into the public space. The three part performance series is in collaboration with three mentors. Contemporary Irish performance artists Amanda Coogan, Dominic Thorpe and Ciara McKeon will each work with Leah exploring the theme of negotiating a public space. Each performance is choreographed to respond to the space and is realised through specific materials and actions. The project recognises the sense of division felt within our society, an aspect mirrored by the separation felt between performer and viewer. Leah’s work aims to bridge the gap between the two through creating a relationship with the audience. The diverse and multi cultural location of Dublin 1 adds to the development of Leah’s previous performances, as she reaches out and embraces a new audience. The nature of performance art is ephemeral, no two performances are the same, the outcome and the audience’s reaction is uncertain in this sense the artist is exposed and vulnerable. This sense of anticipation is tackled by Leah in her first performance of the series.The first performance ‘Navigating the public space: Anticipation’ mentored by Amanda Coogan will start at 11am on Friday the 20th February 2015 in Connolly Station. Viewers are invited to engage with the performances ongoing conversation. To Coincide with the performance, a tour has been organised to visit the cluster of art spaces in Dublin 1.Meet at Connolly Station Information Desk 11am Fri 20th Feb WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING AT?Take a tour of the contemporary in this historic pocket of the city, meet the curators, find out more about the artists from emerging to established, and enjoy a cup of tea/coffee and a chat. Come along, bring a friend and make some new ones. Hosted by The LAB Gallery, Talbot Gallery and Studios, ArtBox Oonagh Young Gallery and Design HQ and Fire Station Artists’ Studios .Tickets for tour at: www.whatareyoulookingat.eventbrite.ie

if you aren’t all mine
19 February – 20 March | Opening: 19 February at 6pm
Oonagh Young Gallery, 1 James Joyce St, Liberty Corner, Dublin 1

Oonagh Young Gallery is pleased to present if you aren’t all mine, the second solo exhibition in the gallery by Alan Phelan.

The show will be the first Dublin presentation of his 2014 film “Edwart & Arlette”, after exhibitions of the work in Belfast, Stockholm and Treignac, France; as well as the prestigious Bonn Kunstmuseum “Videonale.15” which opens later this month.

The film “Edwart & Arlette” was developed from Phelan’s first gallery project “Handjob” which acted like an open notebook ideas from which the script for the film was developed. That installation has been revised for the exhibition “Selective Memory” at the Lewis Glucksman Gallery, Cork and on view there until 15th March 2015.

For more information, please visit: www.facebook.com/events/786835744744467/?fref=ts

‘Patching the Void’ by Tim Goulding
Private View: Thursday 19 February 2015, 6 to 8pm
20 February to 7 March 2015
Taylor Galleries, 16 Kildare Street, Dublin 2Taylor Galleries is pleased to present ‘Patching the Void’, an exhibition marking the launch of a boxed set of etchings and original poems by Tim Goulding that runs from 20 February to 7 March 2015. The show also features a series of related paintings and drawings.The ‘Patching the Void’ suite of six colour etchings is based on unravelling and patching and was printed as an edition of 30 at Graphic Studio Dublin in 2014. The prints are inspired by energetic particles, veins, threads and used textile surfaces and make sparse poems with textural and calligraphic features with a nod to the ‘wabi-sabi’ aesthetic of Japan. The accompanying poems investigate the path of self-realisation. They speak to the part of humans that loves truth and are unflinching in their acceptance of whatever presents itself; celebrating the sacred in the commonplace.http://www.taylorgalleries.ie/Tim-Goulding-Patching-the-Void

20 February – 25 April
First Floor Gallery, Draiocht, Blanchardstown, Co. Dublin
Draiocht’s Galleries are open Monday to Saturday 10am-6pm. Admission is Free.

Jenny’s work is an emotional response to light and space, exploring the concept place. The predominant mood behind her work is one of dense stillness and unhindered horizon, a sense of quiet and restfulness; an empty place, as if the subject has simply stepped out. Her canvases can appear empty, cold and pared back, but on closer inspection are rich with subtle texture and tone, her colours muted, almost monochrome at times, like the diffused sunlight on an overcast day; indistinct structures nestling within this abstract place veiled by a transparent mist. The composition evolves as the process of applying plaster and oil paint begins. It is these materials, and their application, which creates an environment where things can happen by chance. It is this element of chance which provides the moment of excitement, when the work is led somewhere unexpected . This continues throughout the making process, as the work builds in layers of thin colour, settling into crevices and filling spaces, only to be sanded or scratched back and then re-applied, gradually building a richness of depth.

Jenny works on as many as eight pieces simultaneously. She was brought up in Mayo and now lives and works in Co. Tipperary. A graduate of NCAD, her work is represented in several public collections, including those of University College Dublin, Iona Tech and TSB, as well as private collections in Ireland, UK and Germany.

www.draiocht.ie/visual_arts/jenny_fox

Circus
20 February – 25 April
Ground Floor Gallery, Draiocht, Blanchardstown, Co. Dublin
Draiocht’s Galleries are open Monday to Saturday 10am-6pm. Admission is Free.

In 1915 Fred Bradna became the Equestrian Director of the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus and remained in that position until 1945. They were a part of the show in Hartford Circus in 1944 which saw one of the worst fire disasters in the history of the USA with an estimated 167-169 people dead and more than 700 injured. The show was attended by approximately 7,000 people.

‘Some photographs of Fred Bradna’s troop were a starting point for my canvases. In these paintings I challenge myself with my pessimistic worldview and believe that human existence has no sublime meaning or value. My works are often on the borderline of being kitschy and comical. That is how I see the circus when it is stripped of its romantic and sentimental vision. In these paintings I assemble different and sometimes opposite situations, using my own sense of humour. By combining vintage acrobats, animals, clowns and freaks with modern day people I try to express the senselessness and absurdsity of our nature. By constantly staying with traditional and conservative values, we are unable to deal with our consciousness, leading us to unhappiness and in the end to destruction.’

www.draiocht.ie/visual_arts/bartosz_kolata

I See a Darkness
19 February – 14 March 2015 | Opening: 19 February at 6pm
Kevin Kavanagh, Chancery Lane, Dublin

Eleanor Duffin { Lorraine Neeson { Paul Nugent { Niamh O’Malley { Nicky Teegan

Upon entering the endangered & extinct species room on a recent visit to the Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle in Paris, almost all of the lights went out. Walking through the long room in this crepuscular mode was an oddly fitting—eyes swimming through darkness and history in the glooming dim. As banal as it seems to highlight, elevated brightness is intrinsic to most displays of fine art—including video works closeted in dark rooms. We don’t tend to wander round galleries squinting, unless it’s from over-illumination, but tempered brightness and tones can offer more than they hide. Stepping into darkness, with both terror and exhilaration, is an essential and universal passage.

This exhibition, which started an an idea to broadly explore the history and mythology of the black mirror*, as both theme and object, has crystallised into a collection of visual incantations by five artists. These will be textually accompanied by excerpts from a variety of fiction and non-fiction sources in the form of a booklet.

*which in a most (un)common forms holds otherworldly connotations and links to unconscious planes { black magic, hypnotism, divination, scrying and catoptromancy} and was a tool (dubbed a Claude Glass) used by painters across Europe during the eighteenth century as an image reflector, to compose scenes to work from—its black surface tonally compressing overly bright landscapes.

I See a Darkness will travel to Dunamaise Arts Centre, Portlaoise, 26th March – 2nd May 2015.

www.kevinkavanaghgallery.ie

PLASTIK Festival 2015
www.plastikfestival.com PLASTIK Festival of Artists’ Moving Image culminates in a weekend of screenings, talks and performance 20, 21, 22 February 2015 in IFI, TBG+S & Filmbase.Season tickets are available via IFI box-office for €60 or €50 for students / unwaged.
Individual tickets to events available ifi.ie/ifiandplastikfestival and plastikfestival.eventbrite.ieA collaboration between LUX Critical Forum Dublin (a meeting group for artists involved with the moving image), LUX, Temple Bar Gallery + Studios and the Irish Film Institute. Spread over three days and a number of venues PLASTIK is Ireland’s first festival devoted entirely to artists working with the moving image, creating a new platform for this area of practice and featuring a broad selection of works, many of which will be screening here for the first time.PLASTIK in Dublin opens with a programme of films selected by Gerard Byrne and Sarah Pierce from the LUX archive. The Festival features works by over thirty artists including Cerith Wyn Evans, James Richards, John Smith, Cory Arcangel, Frances Stark and Wilhem Hein & David Gatten (attending special guests of the festival), and many more. A series of discursive events initiated with the support of Maeve Connolly (IADT) and Benjamin Cook (LUX), take place at Temple Bar Gallery + Studios.

Saturday evening will feature a live performance by London based artist Hannah Sawtell and the festival will close on Sunday evening with a focus on the work of Christoph Schlingensief. Other guests of the festival include curators Filipa Ramos (Vdrome), Peter Taylor (International Film Festival Rotterdam), Guillaume Breton (Rowing Projects) and attending speakers including Regina Barunke (Temporary Gallery), George Clark (TATE) and Isla Leaver-Yap (LUX Scotland).??We are hugely grateful to the Arts Council for their support in making this festival possible.

Look forward to seeing you there,
Jenny Brady, Daniel Fitzpatrick, Sibyl Montague, Fifi Smith (Festival Curators)

/portals/
A play by Ella de Búrca.
/portals/ provides an integral part of de Burca’s solo exhibition GOBO which takes place at ArtBox from February 5th – March 14th.

ArtBox: 3 James Joyce Street, Dublin 1
artboxprojects.wordpress.com

Starring: Jill Harding, Bob Kelly and Aine Ní Laoghaire. Written by Ella de Búrca. Two performances, 40min each, will take place in ArtBox on February 12th and 13th from 7-8pm. Spaces are limited, booking is essential.

Booking: https://www.eventbrite.ie/e/portals-tickets-15480871704

/portals/
X and Y went to an art opening.
They argued about the images on display.
Y went home and fell asleep.
She has reoccurring nightmares about the disagreement as she attempts to organise her thoughts.

Down Our Way
19 February – 19 March | Opening: 19 February at 6pm
Duke Street Gallery, 17 Duke Street, Dublin 2

Brian Palm’s newest exhibition Down Our Way returns to a subject that has ignited the artist’s imagination for over four decades. As an art student in the late 1970’s Brian took a flat in a house on Percy Place, facing the Grand Canal in Dublin. The surrounding streets and community became the focus of, and inspiration for much of his artwork. During this period Brian took hundreds of black and white photographs of local children, colourful characters, the elderly inhabitants and the rapidly disappearing architectural fabric of the neighbourhood. Ever since, these images have proved to be a constant source of inspiration for Brian’s unusual technique of combining original photographic imagery with oil paint and yacht varnish to create evocative Dublin street scenes. During the past few years Brian has reconnected with two of the children whose images appear in the work, Wendy and Karen. Both of whom plan to be present on the night.

The exhibition opening will take place at 17 Duke Street on the 19th of February from 6-8pm.

www.dukestreetgallery.ie | www.facebook.com/dukestreetgallery

Imirt Le Do Thoil! (Play Please!)
13 February – 12 March | Opening: 13 February at 8pm
Courthouse Gallery, Ennistymon, Co. Clare

Amanda Jane Graham, Myra Jago, Nicole Tilley

Imirt Le Do Thoil! (Play Please!) is a group exhibition by artists Amanda Jane Graham, Myra Jago and Nicole Tilley, exploring through print, drawing, painting and sculpture notions of childhood and fantasy. Challenging the unending upside of new technology, Amanda Jane Graham looks at how our cataclysmic building boom ensued to the detriment of much-loved childhood hangouts. Nicole Tilley’s shadow cut-outs include an archive of characters from bedtime stories, beloved pets and threadbare toys, reintroducing traditional storytelling essential to childhood imagination. Myra Jago takes a naive approach to the unpalatable tragedies of our ghost estates using high-key colour paintings and absurd sculpture to soften the blow.

Imirt Le Do Thoil, through the work of these three artists, is purposely low-tech and playful as it examines and highlights the traditions and freedoms of childhood and childhood environments. This exhibition is mischievous, engaging and thought provoking, with the capacity to instigate collective experience and communal concern.

For more information, please email: [email protected]

www.thecourthousegallery.com

ROOT ISLAND
17 February – 31 March
L’Atitude 51, Union Quay, Cork

West Cork based artist Michael Mc Swiney portrays a world of abandoned, often threatening panoramas of land and sea. The influence of colour and atmospherics from living so close to the Atlantic Ocean are intertwined into his paintings.

These layered/textured sometimes `abstract expressionistic` images are inspired from memory of growing up in Cork Harbour and spending time on the sea.

A sense of elusiveness is central to these mood-orientated images, where through alienating colours and strong atmospheric effects, these paintings portray an unnerving picture of nature.

Symbolically significant materials such as tar, pigment and earth has been worked into the paintings.

www.michaelmcswiney.ie

20 February – 5 March | Opening: 19 February at 7pm
TACTIC, 3rd Floor Sample-Studios, Sullivan’s Quay, CorkBorn in Sri Lanka, Michella Perera is an Irish artist currently practicing in Cork. After graduating from Limerick School of Art and Design (BA) in 2014, she received the National Sculpture Factory Graduate Award (2014). Her three-month residency was completed in January 2015, which culminated with the work developed for the current exhibition.The theatre set-like installations, Michella Perera create are a response to place, in which urban narratives of her surrounding environment are exposed, contested and opened to debate. The installation references the site and other similar sites of crisis where social, political and economic relationships of the surrounding environment converge and produce an image of our current situation. Through certain inversions and re-assimilations of this information and these co-dependencies, Perera endeavours to form a dialogue between the artwork and these locales. In doing so, she produces heterotopic [As formulated by Michel Foucault in Of Other Spaces: Utopias and Heterotopias, published in October 1984 in the journal Architecture/Movement/Continuité, a heterotopia is “something like counter sites (…) in which real sites (…) are simultaneously represented, contested and inverted.” Their physical location is perhaps known, but they lie outside of all places.] counter sites that create a new critical space in which dominant narratives can be re-imagined and contested.Her recent exhibitions include ‘First Light,’ Limerick School of Art and Design 2014, ‘Conversations | Reconstructed,’ The Culture Box, Temple bar 2014, ‘Liminal,’ Boat House, Limerick 2013,‘Nineteen,’ Davis Street, Limerick 2013,‘The Gathering,’ Shannon Airport 2013.Kindly supported by the National Sculpture Factory.

www.michellaperera.com | www.facebook.com/events/865786926821960/?ref_newsfeed_story_type=regular

Belonging
6 February – 20 March
Jennings Gallery, Brookfield Health Sciences Complex, UCC
Opening hours: Monday – Friday, 8am – 10pm/ Saturday – Sunday, 8.30am – 5pm/ Closed on bank holidays

Belonging is an exhibition of paintings by Thérèse Healy-Kelly featuring depictions caught in the polarities of country and coast. This is her first solo exhibition at the Jennings Gallery, UCC.

From the Galway trawlers and the bustling street scene back to the dog lying lazily at the end of the winding stairs all rendered in oil on canvas, Healy-Kelly’s work is full of expression and movement. It is real, yet abstract.

She is a UCC graduate, living in Galway city and coming from rural North Cork, and is currently studying for a degree in Art and Design in GMIT. Thérèse is a featured artist in Paul and Aileen Finucane’s publication ‘Old Pier Union Hall’.

www.ucc.ie/en/jennings-gallery | www.theresehealykelly.com

After The Fall
12 February – 5 March | Opening: Thursday, 12 February, 7-9pm
PS², 18 Donegall Street, Belfast, BT1 2GP

After The Fall is the first exhibition at PS² by Belfast-based artist Robert Anderson following the recent completion of his practice-based PhD at the Ulster University. This exhibition attempts a reformulation of the studio within the gallery space using a combination of image fragments and works in progress.

Much like Kubrick’s Black Monoliths, artworks seem to appear out of nowhere. Intangible. Detached in some way. To borrow Rosalind Krauss’ words, artworks can suffer from “an absolute loss of place.” Krauss’ description refers to a period of sculptural production seen as “placeless and largely self-referential” [1]. A form of homelessness that develops beyond a social condition into a Modernist conundrum. Moreover, this sentiment continues to describe an ongoing disjuncture between art and its locations.

After The Fall opens on Thursday 12 February at 7pm with an introduction to the show by the artist. Robert Anderson will also discuss this work as part of a more detailed talk at the Ulster University on Thursday 05 March, 2015, 1pm in the Conor Lecture Theatre.

[1] Krauss, Rosalind. Sculpture in the Expanded Field. October, Vol.8.1979. The MIT Press. Cambridge, Massachussets; London, UK, Pg.342.