Bones in the Attic

I made an excursion into Dublin's Hugh Lane Gallery before the end of October in order to see the group exhibition “Bones in the Attic”.This was a fabulous exhibition, curated by Victoria Evans, showcasing  works by women artists in the permanent collection in feminist dialogue with recent work by invited women artists. 

The first piece visible to the viewer (after reading Evans's wall didactic exhibition statement) was what appeared to be a mohair couch. Closer inspection of Sofa, the 1997 artwork by Rita Duffy, showed that in fact the couch was upholstered with hair pins. In this upholstery setting the common, feminine item rendered the couch uncomfortable and combined with the blood colour could only be seen as a threat. Definitely not an invitation to sit and relax...

I was drawn into the next work by the sound and what seemed, at first, to be a playful sculptural installation. The forms were mostly painted colourfully but there was also something ominous. While some forms were colourful and almost whimsical, they seemed to writhe in a way I found disturbing and the dark piece that hovered in the background (centre of this photograph) seemed a threat of some sort. The seemingly haphazard placement of painted sheets on clotheslines said something about domesticity gone awry. Learning to smell the smoke by Eleanor McCaughey is full of foreboding and angst and I could feel the tenseness inherent in this work without foreknowledge of her personal situation.  In later reading of her biography I could understand and appreciate that she was able to imbue her work with personal suffering while making it appear playful. 

 

It is always a delight to see the work of Jesse Jones, and visit again her 2017 work Tremble, Tremble through the various objects associated with this multi-media work that are in the Hugh Lane collection.

I wrote about that exhibition here and an associated artist conversation/event here. I wrote about her most recent work, The Tower, here.

Sarah Jayne Booth's (for) All Our Grievous Doings, 2022 is an installation response to misogyny and the historic demonisation of women. What has a whimsical appearance packs quite the punch when deconstructed - a living room where each item carries a variety of meanings.

 

Ruby Wallis's large photographs, A Woman Walks Alone at Night, With a Camera, is an ongoing performative work reclaiming traditionally male times in urban spaces (ie, the night).

I was happy to see Kathy Prendergast's work, Waiting 1980, taken out of storage for this exhibition. I remember it being displayed in the foyer of Hugh Lane for many years and noticed when suddenly it wasn't there.

 

Over the past few years of the pandemic I have become aware of the collective Na Cailleacha so was was glad of the chance to see some of their work in person (as opposed to online). The "witches" are a group of aging women artists, some of whom I had been aware of already as individual artists.

The collective still work individually but engage with more force as a group. The group consists of Helen Comerford, Barbara Freeman, Patricia Hurl, Catherine Marshall, Carole Nelson, Rachel Perry, Gerda Teljeur and Therry Rudin. Most of these women are visual artists but Marshall is a writer/curator and Nelson is a musician and composer. I imagine this group has fabulous conversations about art, life, women's issues and just about anything -- I would love to be a fly on the wall at one of their get togethers!

Other artists whose work is included in this exhibition, which I have not had a chance to discuss here, are Amanda Doran, Myrid Carten, Dorothy Cross and Alice Maher. All of the work is deserving of further dialogue, which to me was the point of this fabulous exhibition!

A Growing Enquiry at the RHA Gallagher Gallery, part 2

In last week's post I did an overview of this exhibition and spoke specifically about a few of the artists. As it is a large exhibition I thought I would mention a couple more of the artists.

On entry to the gallery I could see Laura Fitzgerald's 2D works on the wall across the room and from that distance thought they were embroidered works - they seemed so fine and precise. But no these were not embroidery (though no less painstaking); they are certainly fine and precise, but these are witty drawings done with Sharpie pens! I looked at the accompanying didactics for this group and indeed the titles also are full of good humour: (clockwise from upper left) Restless Tractors, More Weather, but I do still care, Powerful People Promises and The Ark.

Here's a closeup of Restless Tractors.The back and forth drawing of the field with the Sharpie mimics plowing field and draws the viewer into both the making and the meaning of the work.

The panoramic landscape scroll A Mountain for Venice also has a witty didactic in which Fitzgerald details each item used in the work's creation - not just the material but where it was purchased and how (and in the case of the specific paper, how long it spent in customs before she finally received it!).

Jane Locke's Consumer Farmer (which could only be seen once one was fully in the gallery) is also a witty work with an eye to the future. I was especially looking forward to her contribution to the exhibition as I have experienced her work on several occasions in the past (and wrote about one in CIRCA Online here). Locke's installation comprises of a futuristic geodesic dome greenhouse where the plants are sparse but alive and well, a worksuit, which again seems futuristic as it has a farmer's patch on it very similar to what one might expect on a NASA spacesuit, and the product catalogue for the spring of 2123 full of Locke's beautiful drawings and surreal product descriptions.

The exhibition A Growing Enquiry - Art and Agriculture, Reconciling Values continues till April 24, 2022.

A Growing Enquiry at the RHA Gallagher Gallery, part 1

I was delighted to see, in person, the large group exhibiton, A Growing Enquiry - Art & Agriculture, Reconciling Values at the RHA Gallagher Gallery in Dublin recently.

The exhibition consisted of new installations by seven women artists - Miriam O'Connor, Laura Fitzgerald, Orla Barry, Katie Watchorn, Jane Locke, Maria McKinney and Anna Rackard. Two of these women (Barry and O'Connor) are farmers as well as artists, and Rackard's large photographs, portraits of women farmers, are scattered throughout the exhibition, certainly reminding the viewers that agriculture is NOT an exclusively male environment.

The exhibition, curated by Patrick T Murphy, responds to questions about how does one create value systems around art and agriculture.

The exhibition is impressive with its wit, artistic response and sheer scale. The didactics were a pleasure to read, giving insight into each artist's personal response to the enquiry and allowing the audience to enter into the dialogue.

The gallery is huge, which allows one to wander the space and engage with each installation (except Rackard's which appear throughout the space) as a separate entity.

There was also some overlap as I could hear the song/chant, which was part of Orla Barry's installation that was not immediately visible until one turned a corner in the gallery.

Barry's installation also included raw sheep wool and a large printout of an Aran knit sweater. Barry's work spoke of commodity, hierarchy, production and language as both the printout and cane crooks were embedded with words. The song itself was evocative.

The song, which was a collaboration with composer Paul Bradley, could be heard throughout the gallery, and the lyrics were written on rough wood - a mirror split of a tree adjoined to resemble the shape of a Celtic cross.

I'll talk about a few more of the artists and their work in next week's blog. A Growing Enquiry - Art & Agriculture, Reconciling Values runs till April 24.

In Trust. In Gratitude. In Hope. Group exhibition at Arthouse, Stradbally

 I did a road trip recently to check out the exhibition In Trust. In Gratitude. In Hope. in Stradbally, Co Laois. The exhibition was organised by Laois Arts Office and curated by Monica Flynn to commemorate the tenth anniversary of Stradbally's Arthouse Gallery. Over sixty artists were asked to respond to Pat Boran's commissioned poem The Window Seat. As my husband, James Hayes, had been commissioned ten years ago to create the sculptural wall piece, Growth, when the gallery was being built, he was invited to take part in the exhibition. Growth, a stainless steel work, can be seen to the left in the picture below; it is in the courtyard entrance to the gallery.

Within the small, but very elegant, gallery James's bronze sculpture, Faith, can be seen with Growth outside the window.

The artists were asked to respond in any way to Pat Boran's poem but there was a size limit on both 2D & 3D works. Artists working in 2D were provided with a square canvas. There is a screening room within the complex (which also includes studio spaces and units to accommodate a live-in artist-in-residency programme) and there were also two video pieces included in the exhibition.

The other artists who were invited to take part had all been involved with Arthouse over the ten years of its existence, most through the residency programme.

The works were as diverse as the individual artists, but the show was cohesive through the ideas of response to the poem and through the size constraints.

The main gallery is quite small but the space is augmented by the running wall immediately outside it, which leads to the screening room. This corridor is very bright and in no way secondary, with full length windows opposite the running wall. The exhibition continues till March 25th 2022.

The Source - book launch

During the past year or so, one of my joys has been to watch artist talks via zoom when live, or later via YouTube when available. An artist himself, Alan Keane recognised the desire of other artists to see what their peers (known and known) were up to during the pandemic and decided to host a series of live but remote video interviews with artists in their studios. The interviews were held weekly on a Saturday morning for about an hour, during which the artist would give a virtual tour of their studio, talk about their practice and be open to a Q & A. While I was only able to attend one event live, it was a brilliant format, and I am so glad the sessions are available on Keane's YouTube Channel, here.

In another recognition of this being such a valuable resource of living Irish artists, Keane turned the series into a beautiful book "The Source". Both the book title and the series title are a deep nod to creative inspiration. I attended the book launch at the United Arts Club in Dublin a few days ago, and was so delighted to meet Mr Keane and to collect my copy of the book.

I don't know if anyone was watching, but I certainly obtained some olfactory satisfaction by opening the book and taking a good sniff! The book is absolutely beautiful, two pages devoted to each guest from the series - a written page with artist bio, statement & portrait and QR code (to directly lead to the YouTube video of the individual) and a lush, full-colour page of the artist's work. The contents page gives a full roster of participants (over 50) at varying stages of their careers, including some very well-known artists.

I had only heard about The Artist's Well series because I saw a notice for an upcoming event with Eamon Colman. Eamon had been a good friend of mine last century but we lost touch over the years, so I was intent on seeing the live event on the Saturday. It was such a pleasure to see him again - and his work! - that I made a point of renewing our acquaintance and headed to Thurles, Co Tipperary to see his recent exhibition, Into The Mountain, there and meet him again. I blogged about it here.

Though most of the guests on The Artist's Well were visual artists, Keane did not confine his interviews to this one form. In fact there are also several gallerists, a musician, a singer and a writer included. Olivier Cornet owns and operates the Olivier Cornet Gallery in Dublin and it was totally fascinating to hear him talk about setting up in Ireland, the artists whom he represents in his stable and his own interests in inter-disciplinary explorations (for example, theming group shows as a response to a specific poem).

At the launch I was hoping I would become reacquainted with a number of artists whose videos I had seen and met years before on one occasion or another. However, due to covid restrictions, I could not stay long at launch and did not get the chance to re-meet some past acquaintances (who may have arrived after I had left). One such artist is Niamh O'Connor who I had the pleasure to meet when we were both involved in the Jack and Jill Foundation's fundraiser "The Big Egg Hunt, Dublin" back in 2013. (I did a few blogs about it back then here, here, here, here, here, here and here!)

At the book launch, Alan Keane assured me that Series 2 of The Artist's Well was due to start in a few weeks. Looking forward to that!

Pluid - The National Comfort Blanket

This week I had intended to write about the other exhibition, Pathos, at Rathfarnham Castle, but after seeing the Pluid exhibition on Sunday, I decided it was a priority because it is a fundraiser in which all of the works may be viewed here and many are available for auction in aid of Pieta House, a charity with a mandate for suicide prevention. I blogged about the Pluid Project back in April of this year when I decided to get involved; you can see that post here. While the initial intention of the project was to create a National Comfort Blanket where the individual contributions would be sown together into one giant work, it soon became apparent to the organisers, Claire Halpin and Madeleine Hellier, that both the variety of media and the number of artworks involved would make this an impossible task. Instead, the numbered works were laid out on a long platform and visitors to the exhibition could make their way around the table to view the squares.

Looking up the tables at the multitude of contributions! Admittedly it was a little overwhelming but also gorgeous to see. The two monoprints I submitted, Rosehips and Wild Rose (#81 & #82), are visible towards the bottom centre.

The brief was completely up to the contributing artist to interpret: so a 6 inch square encompassed both 2D and 3D work and any medium that could be thought of was used! I was particularly drawn to Ciara O'Connor's stitch-drawing image of a parent and child making pasta together.

There were three primary schools that took part in this project: Fairview NS (Dublin), Holy Family NS (Monkstown) and Gaelscoil Nás na Ríogh (Naas). This picture also shows a variety of textile-based work: knitting, crochet, felting, beadwork and quilting. 

Jenny Mahony's limestone sculpture (centre) is a beautiful example of a fully 3D artwork in the exhibition. As #56 - an early piece to arrive at Pluid headquarters - it certainly shows how impossible it would have been to stitch the works together as a literal blanket!

2D work took the form of painting, drawing, photography, sculpture and various types of printmaking. There were a few examples of sun-printed cyanotypes. The print at centre-right is by Val O'Regan.

I was thrilled to see a ceramic piece in the exhibition by Orla Kaminska (upper left), whose work I had seen at the annual Ceramics Ireland exhibition at Rathfarnham Castle in June (I blogged about that exhibition here). I was delighted to discover that Fungi (centre right), the beautifully debossed and gold leaf embellished hand-bound book by Fiona O'Grady, was a blank sketchbook! As someone who enjoys bookbinding myself it is such a treat to see what techniques another artist is using.

This picture again shows a variety of works in different media and techniques: painting, felting, photography, crochet and stitching. The gold embroidery on denim is an extremely delicate drawing of wild garlic by Mairéad Harrington, which to her were a comforting sign of spring. As I have wild garlic growing annually below the fuschia hedge in my front yard (from which I make pesto each spring), I delighted in this piece.

In many of my own art pieces I have referred to my "dream boat": an image of a red-sailed boat in the ocean that first appeared to me in a dream and which I have come to associate with my self. Seeing this marker drawing of the red-sailed boat (centre) by Laura Geragerthy brought a true smile to my masked face, like meeting an old friend.

Human touch, both painted and photographed, like these photos (top, black and white) by Joshua Sullivan, has such strong associations during this time of "social distancing". Hugging and holding hands, when possible, have become far more important and nuanced than at any other time in our lives. I was also delighted to see the mokuhanga print of Kate McDonagh. Stillness (centre) "reflects the solace [she] found in the quiet skies throughout the Pandemic particularly [during] the first lockdown when no planes were flying." I became acquainted with McDonagh's practice during one of Graphic Studio Dublin's "Artist Beyond the Studio" series of lockdown remote artist talks a few months ago. A recording of it can be watched here.

Comfort in nature was another theme found in various forms throughout the "blanket". I was particularly drawn to the bog cotton works by Pamela DeBrí. I used to live rurally in Kerry and the field next to me was where I first saw bog cotton, a sight which I thought wonderful and beautiful. It was a joy to see both the photograph of a cotton field and the real things immortalised on rag paper.

This picture shows varying 3D works by different artists. I enjoyed Grant McEwen's stainless steel Jigsaw Time (reflecting the overhead beams of the cowshed) and it gave my family the opportunity to do a squishy masked selfie. In front of McEwen's piece is the blue origami and graph paper work, Blue Pavilion, by Helen Barry and beside that is Nourishment, a driftwood and copper piece by Helen OBrien. Nearby I was struck by the altarpiece quality of Michelle Boyle's The Sun Rises in Spite of Everything, a mixed media work that includes gold leaf, granite and découpage elements to create something mystical. To the right of Boyle's work is a blue glass abstract landscape work, Bay, by Barbara Keneally.

There were a surprising number of glass works submitted and I was particularly drawn to the colourful works (centre) of Maresa Edwards, which were based on her daily walking routes.

Obviously it is impossible for me to feature every worthy artwork here - there are more than 1200 works! - so please look at the auction website, here, to view individual works and find out more about the artist's response to the theme of comfort. Altogether it is quite amazing how much thought and work and expression can go into a six inch square. Each artwork is so individual and so human - this is truly a project that has shown the depth of feeling that individuals are willing to show during this extraordinary time and to share their comfort with others. Brava Claire and Madeleine for intiating this project! Thank you.