Grad show - IADT - Part 3

I feel like "Define the Line", IADT graduate exhibition, could provide a blog subject for some weeks to come. However, I will only discuss a few more artists and their works and leave Dún Laoghaire's art students till next year.

In the sculpture room display, one could not help but notice the huge, spider-like sculpture that imposed itself on the room. Spider sculptures have changed the art world forevermore, after Louise Bourgeois created enormous bronze works as symbols of the maternal instinct in all its ferocity and elegance.

 Ali Kemal Ali's "spider" is entitled Mind Map and speaks nothing of maternity. It sprawls, it moves (or has the potential to move), it seems more mechanically alien than natural despite the mix of well-crafted materials. Above all, it is beautifully made; a three-dimensional representation of thought processes.

I was drawn away from the imposing Mind Map by curiosity: small boxes were justting from a nearby wall and I wondered what they were.

On closer inspection I realised that these intimate sculptures were only partial "boxes" -- tiny tableaux spaced along the wall so that one could engage with each individually.

Tiziana Prigent-Piussi created tableaux that were meticulous, miniature sets; in my imagination they spoke of unknown stories. One of the sets was even devoid of furnishing such that it exuded the loneliness of an empty stage. When I returned to the exhibition a few days later for the student-guided tour I found out that these pieces, while strong enough as sculptures, were also used as sets for animations by Prigent-Piussi and I was somewhat disappointed  that none were on display.

Another piece that I thought straddled dimensions of thought and theatre, was Trudie Mitchell's predominantly wall installation, Teaghrán.

Difficult to photograph, this piece must have been created most impressively in situ, white cotton thread winding over the wall, creating permanence with glue (but a temporary piece!) it's patterns suggesting landscape contours, weather mapping, ley lines:  demarcations to represent meanings that are not visible to the eye, yet understood and known.

 I had to look up the meaning of the Irish word used for the title and came up with "string" and "tether". While the first may be obvious in the material used, the second has more nuance to it as both a noun and a verb.

As I said at the start, I  have barely touched on the work that was exhibited at the IADT grad show. The work coming out of the art college is exciting and inspiring. The grad show is always worth seeing and exploring; an annual event to look forward to on the art calendar!