Madrid!

I was in Madrid for a few days last week and discovered for myself that, as well as having an incredible array of art museums (the Thyssen-Bornemisza. Prado and Reina Sofia were the ones I visited) the city iself was magnificent! We stayed centrally in a little apartment overlooking the Plaza Santa Ana.

Make sure to wear comfortable walking shoes if you go there, as the streets are all cobbled (which is hard on the feet!) but the best way to see the city is by walking around.

I was intrigued by the charioteer and horses on the roof of one of the buildings, so had to zoom in with my phone camera.

On another day's perambulation, I came across the chariot again from a different direction.

I'm not sure what Romulus and Remus have to do with Madrid, but sure enough they're there being suckled by the she-wolf on top of a wedding-cake type building.

There was lots of construction around Puerto del Sol so I never got a photo of the bear and berries sculpture there that is a symbol of Madrid. I preferred this mural of stacked bears that I saw on another day anyway. There is so much to see and do there that four days can't possibly be enough (and it isn't!) so I know I'll be back, hopefully sooner rather than later.

Barcelona 2

A few weeks back (though it seems ages ago!), I was in Barcelona. This was my second visit to the beautiful city, but this time I was taking no chances on the Sagrada Familia -- bought my ticket online, well in advance. On my first visit to Barcelona in 2012 the queues to get in the fabulous Gaudi building were huge and daunting, so I just slowly walked around the building viewing its amazing exterior.

This time, though, I was able to see all the interior details. The bronze doors leading in to the church were intricate and fabulous. I love irises.

A Gaudi trademark salamander in bronze.

Gaudi was inspired completely by nature, and the columns within the church were like tall trees in a forest.

The stained glass was incredible and colour-themed for the time of day (i.e. pinks and yellows for dawn; yellows, oranges and greens for midday, etc.)/

A real treat, and worth every penny of the price, was an elevator trip up the Passion Tower (the highest of two visitor accessible towers). One took the elevator up and then walked down - 400 steps - with viewing stops along the way.

As well as being able to see architectural features and construction, 

the city and sea were on show.

"God's Easter Eggs". Gaudi paid attention to every detail - even features that could only be seen by the angels.

 The three dimensional mosaics were just gorgeous.

400 stairs down to exit into the church. There was a rail to hang on to on one side -- I did not look down that's for sure! Frightening, especially to one suffering from vertigo, but I did it with no regrets! I would definitely have regretted NOT seeing this!

Visit to London - part 1

I was in London for a few days, just over a week ago. First I spent a couple of days in Surbiton (just outside London) with my cousin and her partner. Back in 1981, my cousin was visiting Toronto (where I originate) and I gave her a couple of monoprints before she returned home to Ireland.

My cousin moved to England in the late 1980s and took the prints with her. I am happy to say that she got them framed and they have been hanging in her home ever since. I remember that these monoprints were part of a series of abstracted flower prints, but I am pretty sure they are the only ones left in existence now, thanks to my cousin who really liked them.

While in Surbiton, we took a cab to Kingston-on-Thames to enjoy a bbq dinner and evening of live music at the Ram Jam blues club. It was an excellent night, and I was especially impressed by the young double bass player - she was amazing!

Last Monday we took the train into the city. It was a very roundabout route as there had been a train derailment the night before that was still causing schedule disruptions. Despite this, we got to our hotel near Earlscourt in good time and walked over to the Natural History Museum. When we had been there a few years ago, a lot of the museum was closed for renovation, so it was delightful to walk around in the late afternoon, and revisit the beautiful halls.

The architecture in the great hall is stunning!

Actually, the architectural details in the whole museum is quite breathtaking. Both the old sections and the contemporary sections have amazing details. Though I have no pictures of the contemporary areas, I do recommend the environmental display areas, and my favourite -- the big earth ball installation near the side entrance that an escalator will facilitate a journey through.

It was dark when we left the museum, and all the trees were decorated with fairy lights - showing off nature's architecture!

Grad show - part 2

It seems like ages ago now, but there was quite a bit of good work at the IADT grad show "Define the Line" so I can't just let the blog last week be the sole representative of my musings! Although there was so much work worthy of discussion, I am just going to focus on three artists whose work straddles that in-between area of painting and sculpture, becoming installations in their own right. I was also especially interested in the materials used.

Sorcha Carey's work explored a variety of media (muslin, porcelain, paper) and architecture itself. I particularly was taken by her muslin works - material formed around a door and corner of a door. A complete ghost door hung from the ceiling as a challenge: did this apparition lead somewhere ethereal? What could it be a door to? The corner of a door frame formed on another piece of muslin was strewn on the floor, as if discarded. A fragment of an opening or closure.

Suzanne Daly painted portraits of friends and family on translucent cloth that hung from the ceiling, banner-like. The portraits were stylised and engaging. Familiar as banners, they were celebratory in their ordinariness.

Zunaira Khursid painted motifs based on Persian floral designs. This installation of polythene is part of her Hijab series. Khursid works beautifully within the limitations of Islamic art in a contemporary fashion. The draping of the large piece of plastic across the room from the ceiling and continuing along the floor expresses a welcoming fleibility; the translucent material is like a modern veil - not a barrier - arousing curiosity for what is beyond but not clear.

This is a temporary work - I have painted on plastic in the past myself: as the sun heats the floral designs, they will dry and crack and come away from the plastic ground. There is an element of pre-planned obsolescence and self-destruction in this work that is intriguing.

Glasgow - 1

 I was in Glasgow a week ago, on the class "getting to know you" trip (I have recently started the MA in Art & Research Collaboration programme through IADT Dún Laoghaire). I had the feet walked off me visiting art shows and artist studios over three days, but it was interesting and exhilarating. Every morning there was quite a fog, which burned off by the afternoon, so the weather was very pleasant and dry. Friday morning (Oct 16) was spent exploring the downtown area and soaking in the city atmosphere before meeting up with the group for our planned gallery visits. I am not sure if this photo gives a good enough indication of how hilly the streets are in the city, but they most certainly are steep!

One of the architectural features I thought very interesting was the street entrance stairs to buildings, almost like flying buttresses over dry moats -- there would be additional steps leading down to the lower level to gain access to the below-footpath-level premises.

Buchanan St. is a busy pedestrian street.

There are many contrasting buildings on Buchanan St. (and elsewhere) and often the ground floor is a high street shop.

I was fascinated by this decorative building. The shop below just happened to be Laura Ashley.

Though the windows of this build seem plain in comparison to the building above, I liked the top story decoration and the semi circular window and its accompanying arch work.

I didn't look to see what denomination this church represented, just focused on the decoration.

This clock tower is also part of the church.

 There was a lot of carved stone decoration on buildings. This may have been at the entrance to a sports shop.

I think this man may have been on the other side of the sports shop entrance.

National Museum of Ireland - Archaeology

In addition to visiting the Dead Zoo last week, we also dropped in to the National Gallery to give my visiting sister a chance to see the Sean Scully show, and then to show off the beautiful National Museum of Ireland - Archaeology building. The rotunda entrance is impressive.

My husband, sculptor James Hayes, has been recreating bronze bells using ancient techniques on the annual Umha Aois: Experimental Bronze Casting Symposium. So we took a closer look at the hand bells in the museum while we were there.

The double loop handles are intriguing.

The didactic says this bell is associated with St. Patrick, purely on the grounds of the inscription.

This is one of my husband's bronze bells; he cast it in Skibbereen this summer, where Umha Aois was held this year.

Eileen Gray at IMMA

After being closed for renovations at least a year, IMMA re-opened last October with what was touted as a spectacular and comprehensive exhibition of work by Eileen Gray. I came across an exhibition of Gray's work at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on my first art-school visit to New York in 1980, and was incredibly inspired by her work so I was looking forward to this exhibition. I was getting anxious as the closing date was drawing near (next week!) but finally found the time yesterday after attending a site meeting in the morning. While the exhibition was "comprehensive" in that it included information on all aspects of her work -- architecture, collage, carpet design, furniture design, photography, painting and lacquer work it actually seemed very dry. I was disappointed, not in the work, but in the curation. The National Museum has an extensive archive of Eileen Gray letters and photographs, many of which were borrowed for this exhibition. Rather than supporting the objects it seemed that the objects were supporting the archival documents. There was a disconnect between the viewer and the work. For instance, the beautiful lacquer screen below was displayed in a glass-fronted solid box totally defeating the purpose of the screen! Gray had designed this divider screen specifically so that what was on the other side of the divider could still be glimpsed. The layout of the IMMA exhibition space is such that the screen could have easily been accommodated by displaying between rooms (many of which were divided by ropes anyway so that you had to go out to the hall to get into another room!). As the view of all 3 dimensional items was limited to one perspective, I thought there was a severe lack of imagination on the curator's part. I distinctly remember being able to walk around large pieces of furniture and screens at the exhibition in New York.

Again, the asymmetrical cupboard below was roped off with the wall directly behind so the audience got a straight, head on view only . The didactic said the cork drawers were lined with silver leaf. I would have liked to see it, not just read about it!

It was a pleasure to see some of the tiny collage/paintings which reminded me of Kasimir Malevich's work. It was easy to understand how Gray developed her interest in carpet design and I was glad to see some completed carpets in this exhibition.

This very vibrant screen was NOT in the Dublin exhibition, but it seemed familiar, so maybe I saw it in New York. The funny thing about being inspired by Eileen Gray in 1980 was that I had no idea that she was Irish -- born in Enniscorthy, Co. Wexford the town where my mosaic panel "Gorse" resides at the Enniscorthy Community Hospital. The Metropolitan still has her listed as a British artist, so perhaps that is a reason why I did not realise she is was Irish till about 10 years ago.

Lanzarote - Cesar Manrique

I spent Oct 7 - 14 on Lanzarote, based in Puerto del Carmen, in the Canary Islands. Oh bliss! Everywhere on Lanzarote is the imprint of native artist-architect-environmentalist Cesar Manrique [1919-1992]. In the airport arrivals hall one is first greeted with the island's logo, designed by Manrique:

Aside from swimming with the fishes in the warm Atlantic, I did a few excursions including a South Island Tour to explore the volcano Timinfaya. The "fiery mountain" erupted 300 years ago for 6 years and completely devastated the island. Timinfaya National Park is a protected area so that the volcanic environment is seen and enjoyed in its purest possible form. Manrique also designed the logo for Timinfaya National Park which is seen on loads of tourist items. This is a metal piece on the wall of the restaurant on the volcano which he also designed.

This is the restaurant oven which uses the heat from the mountain depths (400 metres below) to cook food! It was hot in that room, but it smelled really good...

The tour bus traveled on a one-way route through Timinfaya with stunning (and often terrifying) views of craters, lava flows and volcanic debris. Outside of the national park, the tour continued to Las Salinas de Janubio (salt flats), El Golfo and Los Hervideros. The viewing points for Los Hervideros ("Boiling Pots") were designed by Manrique and are completely sympathetic with the landscape.

The boiling may refer to the ocean when the volcano erupted as the water certainly would have gotten very hot!

Or it may refer to the bubbling and crashing of the water against the shoreline and within hollow lava tubes.

Regardless of the origin of the name, it is something to see!