RHA Annual Exhibition - part 2 of 2

I gave a general overview of this year's RHA Annual Exhibition in my post here, but I also wanted to post a few pix of works that stood out for me among the plethora of excellent artworks.

Although the first gallery room seemed chock-a-block with work, the hanging seemed very thoughtful as works definitely were in some sort of conversation and subtle echoes of each other. One of my friends who was viewing the exhibition on a repeat basis noted that visitors spent more time in this first room, before they really realised how huge the exhibition actually was. I tried to hurry my pace. In one corner I noted a large drawing, a self-portrait, by Imogen Stewart, a grand dame of the Irish art world. She is a notable sculptor and, indeed, the drawing was very sculptural in form. One of her sculptures is in the foreground of this picture. Also in the corner was a drawing and some sculpture by Danny Osborne. I had some familiarity with his fascinating work in lava casting because he had been on an Umha Aois project with my husband a few years ago.

My foray to the RHA was brought about by the desire to see Judy Foley's new work in the flesh. Through the delicacy and clarity of her images of body implants, she subverts traditional icon painting techniques (egg tempera and gold leaf triptych) to boldly make statements of the fragility of humanity versus godliness. I have followed Foley's work for a number of years and have previously written about it for CIRCA online magazine here.

After being introduced to Myra Jagos work at the recent "Show and Tell" at Signal Arts Centre, I was looking forward to seeing her painting in the flesh too. I wrote about the Signal event in a previous blog, here.

In one of the large rooms upstairs, there was a whole wall full of small prints. It was here that the tiny self-portrait etching of Daniel Lipstein leapt off the wall to my eyes in recognition. I had met Lipstein a number of years ago when he was giving open printmaking workshops at Trinity Arts Workshop. Not only was this pre-pandemic, but it was pre-policy change - shortly after Lipstein demystified carborundum printing for me (I had never heard of this process till I came to Ireland!), TAW decided that their workshops would no longer be open (albeit paying) to anyone who was not affiliated in some way to Trinity College. Since I am not, I could no longer attend the workshops. Boo, hiss, on Trinity Art Workshop!

 

I noticed this larger woodblock print and recognised the work of Kate MacDonagh, who gave an artist talk via Zoom last year, hosted by Graphic Studio Dublin. I had also virtually attended MacDonagh's artist talk on the mokuhanga technique (Japanese traditional woodblock printing) of which she is a virtuoso, through the Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown arts office.

Susan Early is also associated with Graphic Studio Dublin. She is the education outreach administrator there (from whom I get loads of e-information on artist talks and courses) and also a printmaker. I was unable to attend her recent Zoom artist talk (thank you GSD for holding these talks throughout the lockdowns and continuing them into the foreseeable future!) but look forward to seeing the recording when it is available. GSD has a YouTube page so previous artist talks can accessed here.

I also recognised the work of Stephen Lawlor from a GSD artist talk and likewise the work of

Ailbhe Barrett (though this print stood out anyway to me, for its ethereal atmosphere).

Speaking of ethereal atmosphere, I loved this intimate painting by Anne Magill.

I thought, when I first saw them on the wall, that this tiny work and a companion piece by the same artist, Bernadette Madden, were colourful, miniature paintings but then realised that with all the sold red dots beside them, they were in fact prints - silkscreen. Gorgeous! it is really inspiring to see so much fantastic work by fantastic artists - my blog is just touching the tip of the iceberg, and in any case a quick pic taken with a phone is nothing compared to the live experience of seeing the actual work. I have my gripes against the RHA, but I can't fault the work being shown there.

"Show and Tell" at Signal Arts Centre

The very first evening Show and Tell event was held by Signal Arts Society (SAS) at Signal Arts Centre in mid-May. As I have recently started working at Signal and am automatically a member of the SAS, as well as becoming the sub-committee minute-taker, somehow the event fell to me to make sure this first event ran smoothly. I had already planned to attend the event so it wasn't too much of a stretch to work it. There were two artists scheduled to do the Show and Tell. Myra Jago and Yanny Petters. I introduced Myra first.

Myra spoke of her process - how she created collages on the computer. printed the completed works on silk and crumpled them up and use these works as the subjects of meticulously detailed oil paintings. While she displayed images of the paintings in an accompanying slide show, Myra had brought in a number of the silk works to show and discuss with the audience. The paintings show Myra's artistic concern with light and reflection and she described the detailed work that goes into gessoing and sanding the canvas prior to painting so that the finish is completely smooth. Seeing the actual silk collages, however, gave a huge insight into Myra's psychological concerns with protest, the environment, innocence and any other subject that comes to mind but remains hidden in the final work. 

Yanny Petters gave an equally fascinating talk about one specific piece, which she brought in to show, and accompanied the talk with a slide show of the work in progress. Yanny worked as a sign writer in the past and uses techniques of verre eglomisé and gilding - painting on glass and gold leaf application -

in her gorgeous and delicate floral paintings. Yanny's re-creation of a hedgerow in all its complexity in a two-dimensional space is nothing less than miraculous. She explained the process of painting in reverse order on the back of the glass and visualising the work in reverse order. In addition to the painting and application of gold leaf, depth is manifested by the very shadows that the painted flowers and leaves cast onto the background when the work is framed.

I don't have a picture of the work she brought in that night but here is a triptych of The Rose Family: Bramble - Dog Rose - Wild Strawberry that gives an idea of the detail in Yanny's work.

The front gallery of Signal can hold an intimate crowd (20-25 people seated) and it was full of an enrapt group. Both artists held the audience in thrall and elicited many questions.The evening was a resounding success and sets a high standard for future Show and Tell events at the centre. I look forward to the future events!