Dunamaise Arts Centre presents

 CHANCERY LANE

An Exhibition to Mark the 15^th Anniversary of Dunamaise Arts Centre

Dunamaise Arts Centre is pleased to present Chancery Lane, an exhibition to celebrate its 15^th  anniversary, featuring recent work by a selection of artists from Kevin Kavanagh Gallery which opens on Thursday 12^th June at 7pm.

The exhibition features the artists Sean Lynch (recently selected to represent Ireland at the 56th International Art Exhibition in Venice in 2015. The Venice Biennial has for over a century been one of the most prestigious cultural institutions in the world), Vanessa Donoso Lopez  and Tadhg McSweeney  as well as a selection of works by artists from Kevin Kavanagh Gallery including Nevan Lahart, Paul McKinley, Margaret Corcoran, Oliver Comerford, Mick O'Dea, Diana Copperwhite, Elaine Byrne, Robert  Armstrong, Geraldine O'Neill, Dermot Seymour, Sinead Ní Mhaonaigh and Mark Swords. 

Dunamaise Arts Centre's Gallery has hosted exhibitions by Irish and international artists and organisations from the length and breadth of the country as well as further afield since its opening in 1999. A landmark event was the exhibition and auction, held in 2003, in memory of Noreen O’Hare, who had been a board member at Dunamaise. Over €75,000 was raised in aid of the cancer unit at St James’ Hospital in Dublin. Also counted among the highlights were exhibitions by artists such as Bernadette Madden, Micky Donnelly, Mick O’Dea, Tom Molloy, Una Sealy and Conor Walton as well as German arist Ulrich Vogl on their exhibitions at Dunamaise. As well as the programme of solo shows, the end of year show by art students at the local Abbeyleix Further Education Centre, has become a favourite fixture in the annual calendar. There have also been collaborations with  the OPW, UTV, Portlaoise Camera Club and with Portlaoise Prison.

Kevin Kavanagh is one of the Ireland’s leading galleries showing Irish and international contemporary art. In 2008 the gallery moved to a 135m² space on Chancery Lane designed by architect Philip Crowe of MCO Projects. It represents both established and emerging artists from Ireland and abroad. The gallery’s annual programme consists of 8/9 solo and 1 curated group show as well as special events, screenings, performances, artists talks and participation at international art fairs.The gallery has published over 30 books on art.

The exhibition is organised by Kevin Kavanagh to mark the 15th Anniversary of Dunamaise Arts Centre and continues until Friday 1^st August.

ENDS

Dídean / Home 

Friday 7 March – Saturday 26 Apr

I have been visiting Portlaoise for the last few years, teaching art in the prison and working on various Artist-in-Prison projects, so I was delighted when I was offered the opportunity to exhibit my work at Dunamaise Arts Centre.

The title of this exhibition is “Dídean/ Home” and it consists of paintings and installations exploring the human dimension to the economic crisis and looking at notions of “home”. In recent years, much has been written about ghost estates, empty hotels and tenantless apartment blocks, at one time an estimated 300,000 units vacant or unfinished, but at the same time we read about the growing problem of homelessness in our country. My work engages with contradictions such as these but, whilst the subject matter may be tough and the questions raised uncomfortable, my primary intention is to make art that moves people.

So I collect images from newspapers, magazines and the internet to find the subjects for my artworks. I am particularly interested in images of ordinary people in situations of conflict or crisis. It is all too easy to become inured to the individual stories that lie behind any of these images, but by choosing one and making it the subject of a large painting, for instance, I   try to emphasize the importance of that human story and, in a way, to subvert the notion of the “15 minutes of fame”. I am interested in exploring how art may produce a deeper and more enduring understanding of the contemporary experience than                                             do media images.

From a formal point of view I became interested in using discarded material in my artwork - cardboard, newspaper, paper coffee cups etc. I thought that it fitted well with the themes I was exploring. The empty coffee cups became a symbol for me of the “Boom and Bust”. During the era of the Celtic Tiger, it seemed like everyone was in a hurry - in a hurry to get to work, in a hurry to make money, in a hurry to build. No time to stop and chat, a quick coffee on the go, Skinny Lattes, Cappucinos, Caffé Mochas - madness - and then at the end of the day, the poor man on the street was using the empty cup to beg for help.

I also became interested in using cardboard in my work. If I was homeless and I had a piece of cardboard and a black marker, would I use them to write: “I’m Hungry, Please Help”, or would I start making art, right there on the street? As an artist, I feel grateful that I can create images out of thin air. I can picture places I’d like to be, things I could have... That’s why I called my installation of cardboard drawings: “Where there is art, there is hope”.

In the end, making art is a mysterious occupation. Working alone in the studio, I paint, I make things, I try out ideas, and sometimes my mistakes inspire new directions and new work… to borrow a quote from the late Tony O’Malley:  “you work at it day after day and then suddenly, something happens, a revelation”. That’s how it is.

Eoin Mac Lochlainn graduated from NCAD in 2000. He is a founder member of the artists’ collective Tondo. He won The Golden Fleece Award for his work in 2008, was shortlisted for the Davy Portrait Award in 2010 and won the ESB Keating McLaughlin Medal at the RHA the same year.

He has had ten solo exhibitions in Ireland and has participated in several selected exhibitions (including RHA, RUA, Iontas, Éigse, Oireachtas) and in various group shows in Ireland, England, France, Belgium, Georgia and China. His work is in the collections of: OPW, AIB, Bank of Ireland, AXA Insurance, University of Limerick, Wesley College, the Boyle Civic Collection and in various private collections.

See www.emacl.com and http://emacl.wordpress.com/

Dídean / Home at Dunamaise Arts Centre, Portlaoise, runs from Friday 7 March – Saturday 26 April with an Opening Reception on Friday 7 March, 7pm. Artist’s talks or workshops can be arranged on request 057-8663355.  

Recent Works

Friday 17 January – Friday 28 February  

A practicing artist for 25 years, Gavin has exhibited widely in Ireland (EVA award winner 1993) and his work is included in many public and private collections. Printmaking is also an important part of his practice, showing regularly in the graphic Studio Gallery, Dublin and participating in group shows in Berlin and London  in 2012 and an Open Studio in New York in 2012 and 2013. Since 2007, he has been working to create a broader, more encompassing visual language. He completed a course in Jungian Psychology in 2012 which has had a major impact on his recent work. www.gavinhogg.com

Exhibition Reception on Wednesday 12 February, 7pm  

GAVIN HOGG

Artist Statement

January 2014

I get up in the morning and I make, and the answer as to why I make is easy; it is simply good to make, to craft anything from its beginning to end, is a pleasant and satisfying thing to do.

Why do I make what I make? is perhaps harder to answer in a straightforward manner. The question moves from the general to the particular but at the same time, I don’t think what I make is particularly obscure. The work is certainly intended to be readily accessible to the casual viewer. The elements within the work are recognisable even if their relationships to each other are uncertain. But this ambiguity is meant as a positive quality, creating room for conversation or imaginative play with the work.

The work is first of all designed. It is drawn and it is planned, it is printed, collaged and painted and the intention is that the work is attractive and will reward time spent by the viewer in looking and considering a possible meaning. It works like this because, I, as the work’s first audience, look at it just like that.

When I say that I design the work and enjoy the satisfaction of making and completing a piece, that doesn’t mean I know exactly what I am doing, as I visually juxtapose one element with another, or what the work is ultimately about. I have an idea or intuition, but the meaning is another question and the real adventure, the real excitement is making something that I didn’t expect to. The trick as an artist is to try and work just beyond the limitations of what I know, in order to learn more, but also to play and explore and discover possibilities that I might not have considered.

This process of making and play has become a very particular kind of dialogue or conversation between myself and the work. It is a conversation between conscious and unconscious energies, which I am trying to understand and also the importance of dreams and symbols, as a means to better understanding the world and how I and it functions.

Friday 13th and Saturday 14th December