BEASTS OF ENGLAND, BEASTS OF IRELAND
Clockwise from left to right: Polly Morgan – “Surgical Fruit ” Ben Long – “Scaffolding Sculpture ” Isobel Nolan – “A Fanaticism of Sympathy”
Main Gallery, VISUAL Centre for Contemporary Art
8th June – 10th Sept 2013
Ben Long (UK), Djordje Ozbolt (Serb/UK), Polly Morgan (UK), Frances Upritchard (NZ/UK), Dan Hays (UK), Yuriy Norshteyn (Rus) and from Ireland, Stephen McKenna, Garrett Phelan, Isabel Nolan, Alex Rose and Martin Healy
Since Aesop, and indeed further back into history, human values have been projected onto animals as a vehicle for exploring our relationships with one-another and the world around us. This exhibition considers some of the ways animals have been deployed symbolically within contemporary art practice.
The exhibition borrows its title from Old Major’s anthem in George Orwell’s Animal Farm, a prime example of an allegorical tale, where human politics are conveyed through animal characters.
UK artist Ben Long’s nine-meter high sculpture of a rearing horse fashioned from aluminium scaffolding will take centre stage in the Main Gallery.
Visual Centre for Contemporary Art, Carlow Arts Festival (Eigse 2013) and the Carlow Local Authorities Arts Office co-present this exhibition exploring the symbolic, metaphorical and emotive value of animals with a selection of contemporary Irish and international artists.
Over the Summer months, a number of artist engagement workshops, talks, masterclasses and public interviews will take place.
Stephen Brandes is a practicing artist, based in Co Cork. Born in Wolverhampton, UK, he moved to Ireland in 1993. In 2005, he co-represented Ireland at the Venice Biennale and has since continued to show his work both nationally and internationally. Stephen has curated several exhibitions, most notably ‘Superbia’, Ballymun, Dublin, 2002; ‘Traffic’, by Jennifer & Kevin McCoy, Visualize Carlow, 2009 and ‘When Flanders Failed’, RHA Gallery, Dublin, 2011 with Matt Packer.
WOOD ART COLLABORATION
An exhibition by over twenty International and Irish wood artists
Curated by Terry Martin
Link Gallery, VISUAL Centre for Contemporary Art
8th June – 10th Sept 2013
This exhibition brings together ten of the most intriguing and creative wood artists practicing today from all over the world, alongside ten of Ireland’s leading practitioners. This group of 20 – sculptors, furniture makers, carvers, and turners – will work together under the artistic direction of Terry Martin, writer and artist from Australia. They will create individual and collaborative work – culminating in the assembly of a large-scale sculpture in the form of a wall, approximately 12 feet in length. The major work will be shown in the Link Gallery of the VISUAL Centre for Contemporary Art from 8th June for three months, and will be a centre-piece of the Carlow Arts Festival (Eigse 2013).
The artists are from America, Australia, Britain, Canada, China, France and Ireland. ‘Although made of wood,’ says Terry, ‘the wall will be based on the Irish dry stone walls that dominate so much of the Irish countryside, with each artist allocated a volume of wood to work on and asked to unveil a narrative that they want to place in the wall.’
Participating artists: Roger Bennett (Ire), Michael Brolly (USA), Christian Delhon (France), Sharon Doughtie (USA), Liam Flynn (Ire), Mark Hanvey (N. Ire), Louise Hibbert (Wales), Brendan Hogg (Ire), Emmet Kane (Ire), John Lee (Ire), Art Liestman (Canada), Glenn Lucas (Ire), Alan Meredith (Ire), Liam O’Neill (Ire), Cillian O’Sulleabhain (Ire), Mark Sanger (England), Neil Turner (Australia), Jacques Vesery (USA) and Xiang Dong Wang (China)
Curator / Artistic Director: Terry Martin (Aus)
The project will be documented by the International Wood Culture Society (www.iwcs.com). The IWCS video crew captures unique wood culture events all over the world and their footage showing the making of the sculpture will run in VISUAL during the exhibition.
An Open Day will be held at the workshop venue, the Wood Study Centre, near Borris, Co Carlow. This Wood Art Gathering will be on Wed 5th June from 4-7pm, the final day of the collaboration before the work leaves for gallery installation. It will be a wonderful opportunity to meet and interact with uniquely talented wood artists from Ireland and around the world.
Why not confirm your attendance at this Open Day on The Gathering 2013
Carlow Arts Festival (Éigse) has committed to focus on and celebrate a different non-traditional arts discipline each year. Wood Art is the focus for 2013, and Textile Art will be the 2014 focus.
Image caption Details of work by participating artists, image (c) John Morris
EXTINCTION
An exhibition of Contemporary Illustrators
Curated by Derry Dillon
Studio Gallery, VISUAL Centre for Contemporary Art
8th June – 10th Sept 2013
Seven of Ireland’s leading Illustrators – chosen for innovation, wit, style, uniqueness and exceptional talent – were asked to respond to the subject of ‘extinction’, and to contextualise their submission with a viewing cabinet of influences and miscellany.
Steve Simpson is a freelance illustrator/designer working in the areas of packaging design, illustration and art for children’s books. Please click here: INTERVIEW WITH STEVE SIMPSON
Steve McCarthy creates illustrations of charm and humour and with a distinct approach to each project and playful use of type and drawing his work spans a variety of media.
Olivia Golden is a Cork-based illustrator who has a broad skill-set in design and illustration and works comfortably in both traditional and digital media.
Stephen Maurice Graham is a Belfast-based illustrator whose work bristles with subtle narratives, eclectic form and playful colouration.
Current Children’s Laureate Niamh Sharkey is the author and illustrator of many of our favourite children’s picture books including I’m a Happy Hugglewug and The Ravenous Beast. With a distinct and playful painterly style, she is admired by a wide audience both in Ireland and abroad.
Phil McDarby is a Wicklow-based artist who visits the woods every single day for inspiration and produces distinct fantasy and science fiction artwork for advertising, production design, branding, and animation.
The Project Twins are the Cork-based FitzGerald brothers whose work uses bold graphics and visual wit to create striking illustrations to clearly communicate a subject matter.
The resulting exhibition will showcase some of the very best work emerging from Ireland’s rich bank of Illustrators, and in the context of a contemporary art gallery their practices will be given a chance to stand amongst other most traditional artists media.
[uhn-der-bel-ee]
An Exhibition by Derry Dillon
Lennons @VISUAL
8th June – 10th Sept 2013
Blending the familiar with the peculiar, Underbelly is a collection of illustrations, prints and sculptures that looks at the local landscape through a somewhat skewered eye.
This exhibition lifts the mossy rock on the county’s rich history and peers at the oddities residing beneath. Unveiling a cluster of quirky characters captured in a series of bizarre scenarios, the collection presents dubious historical facts which Dillon uses to describe the residents of Carlow—from gregarious pistol-happy Lords standing astride the River Barrow to B-movie monsters residing on Mount Leinster.
Carlow Photographic Society presents
Intimate Landscapes
George Bernard Shaw Room, Carlow Library, Tullow Street
8th June – 16th June 2013
Through a series of workshops and discussions with mentor Amelia Stein RHA, members of Carlow Photographic Society have captured unique images from our landscape. Relying on pattern, texture, reflections and tight composition to encapsulate all of nature’s grandeur into a smaller space, Intimate Landscapes will communicate very effectively the beauty and power of nature and its fragility and intrinsic value.
Austin Kinsella, Bob Frazier, Brian Matthews, Bridget Somers, Cepta Burke, Charley Callinan, Christy Glancy, David Fitzgerald, David Lawlor, Gilbert Smyth, Jenny McCullough, Joe Rattigan, John Bradley, Liam Beattie, Linda Nolan, Margaret Fennelly, Margaret Walsh, Martin Doyle, Mary Byrne, Michael Kinsella, Mike Blade, Mike Russell, Nora Kavanagh, Nuala Grogan, Pat Lohan, Phonsie McCarron, PL Curran, Regina McEvoy, Richard Smyth, Roger Jones, Shirley Kelly, Steven McDonald, Tim Redmond and Willie McCann will participate.
Amelia Stein will open the exhibition at a reception (Saturday 8th June at 5pm) and give a short talk on her own work.
This exhibition is sponsored through the generous office of R.J Smyth & Co, Chartered Accountants.