Recent Works

Finding Form – Group exhibition at the McKenna Gallery, Riverbank Arts Centre, Newbridge

Untitled, oil on canvas, 73 x 75 cm, 2009

Come along and explore artwork from Kildare County Council’s Municipal Art Collection (MAC) established in the 1970’s. The collection normally displayed in public buildings across the county, has been revisited, and a selection of work has been especially curated for this exhibition.

A municipal collection is a body that is in the process of becoming and so, is not easily defined. The works chosen from the collection echo this feeling of flux, of taking form, the momentary becoming monumental through time and context and medium. Included among the selection are artworks by Niamh O’Malley, Isabel Nolan, Gillian Lawler, Shane Hynan, Emma Stroude, John Minihan, Seán Cotter, Rebecca Peart, John Behan, James Nolan, Derek A Fitzsimons and Dominic Turner.

This exhibition has been curated by Paula Barrett, the newest member of our Kildare Arts Service team. “This has been a great opportunity to get to know the works in the Kildare MAC, to take time to reflect on the purchasing policy and what it means to care for and interpret a municipal collection.”

Official opening Friday 21 April, 6:30pm – all welcome

As part of this exhibition there will also be a Free Panel Discussion on Thursday 11 May at 7pm and a Finding Form Art Workshop for adults on Thursday 25 May at 7pm. More details to follow.

McKenna Gallery

Friday 21 April – Saturday 27 May

Monday – Friday 9.30am-5pm | Saturday 10am-1pm

Practical Magic – Pallas Projects Periodical Review/12

Artists:

Kevin Atherton, Cecilia Bullo, Myrid Carten, Ruth Clinton & Niamh Moriarty, Tom dePaor, The Ecliptic Newsletter, Eireann and I, Patrick Graham, Aoibheann Grennan, Kerry Guinan & Anthony O’Connor, Camilla Hanney, Léann Herlihy, Gillian Lawler, Michelle Malone, Thais Muniz, Ciarán Ó Dochartaigh, Venus Patel, Claire Prouvost, Christopher Steenson, TU Platform

Selected for this year’s Periodical Review:
Gillian Lawler
Mary Lawler, oil on canvas, 50 x 60 cm, 2022
~
The death of one’s mother is a traumatic time and for an artist, it can leave a lasting influential imprint in their working oeuvre. Gillian Lawler lost her mother Mary Lawler in 2017 and her work has been captivated by this loss ever since. Her solo exhibitions Edgelands 1 & 2 in Molesworth Gallery and Weber & Weber Turin, explored loss, transience and passing through the veils with indistinct forms and structures dissolving into miasmas of gaseous backgrounds, the human form conspicuous by its absence.

Preview
6–9pm, Friday 9th December 2022

Gallery hours
12–6pm, Thursday–Saturday
10th December 2021 – 28th January 2023
(Closed from 23rd December – reopens 6th January)

“The frontiers of a book are never clear-cut: beyond the title, the first lines, and the last full stop, beyond its internal configuration and its autonomous form, it is caught up in a system of references to other books, other texts, other sentences: it is a node within a network.”

– Michel Foucault
Chapter 1, ‘The Unities of Discourse’
The Archaeology of Knowledge, 1969

Periodical Review (2011–ongoing) is a long-running curatorial project which sets out to consider, revisit and review current movements within contemporary art practices from around Ireland. Intended as a space for critical appraisal and consolidation of ideas and knowledge, the aim through each subsequent edition is to facilitate and encourage new readings, collaboration, crossover and debate. Not a group exhibition per se, Periodical Review is a discursive action, with the gallery presented as a journal, a magazine-like layout of artworks in dialogue, the field talking to itself.

With each iteration PP/S invites two peers – curators, artists, writers, educators – to consider the artworks, exhibitions and projects they encounter over the course of a year and then nominate what was for them, significant practices, works, activity, moments, selected via an editorial process. Within this exhibition framework – a constantly shifting series of subjective viewpoints and positions (geographical, personal, political, institutional) – curatorial unity cannot be prescribed, threads or movements can only occur.

In looking at self-organised exhibitions, off-site, artist-led and independent projects, commercial galleries, museum shows, performances and publications, Periodical Review looks to present the complex and heterogeneous span of visual art in Ireland, creating dialogue and critical reflection amongst peers and between practices, to help develop and engage Irish contemporary art as a whole. In doing this, it can also act as an accessible survey of contemporary art, expanding access to and experience of new art practices from around Ireland to a wider audience.

In addition to curator’s texts which provide context for their selections, the exhibition is accompanied by an essay by writer Sarah Kelleher, commissioned in collaboration with Paper Visual Art Journal. This new PPS/PVA Visual Art Writing Commission is intended to further discourse on the contemporary moment in visual art in Ireland, while also building into a record of art practice, projects, and concepts over time.

Essay published in collaboration with Paper Visual Art Journal, as part of the PPS/PVA Visual Art Writing Commission
 

Events

Opening event:
Friday 9th December, 6pm
Performance: Léann Herlihy, a cartography of the middle of nowhere
Artist Léann Herlihy will perform a live reading from their publication

Closing event:
Saturday 28th January
The Ecliptic Newsletter, pop-up event
See announcements/website for further details

Golden Fleece Award 21 Years Exhibition

Transformation III, oil on canvas, 50 x 70 cm, 2021.

Curated by Aisling Prior

Join us for the exhibition opening and the 2022 Golden Fleece Award Ceremony from 2 to 3.30pm, on Saturday 23 April. The exhibition continues until the 4th of June

In association with the Golden Fleece Award, Solstice Arts Centre presents The Golden Fleece Award: 21 years, an eclectic and diverse group exhibition, to mark twenty-one years of the Golden Fleece Award.

The Golden Fleece Award was established as an independent artistic award through a bequest by Dublin-based artist, researcher and educator, Helen Lillias Mitchell (1915-2000). The first Award was made in 2002. Its mission, in accordance with Lillias’ wishes, is to provide resources for practising visual artists, craftspeople, designers and makers working in all forms of visual, craft and applied art to innovate and develop their creative vision. Awarded annually, the Golden Fleece Award is the largest prize open to both artists and makers originally from or currently living on the island of Ireland.

The Golden Fleece Award: 21 years provides a unique insight into art, craft, and design in Ireland over the past two decades, showcasing work by over 40 creative practitioners who have been supported by the Award at a pivotal point in their careers. The exhibition brings together work of all kinds – tapestry, painting, glass, video, embroidery, photography, furniture design, ceramics, sculpture, fashion design, jewellery, sound, installation, basket-weaving, drawing, silversmithing, woodwork – and highlights the impressive breadth of the Golden Fleece Award’s philanthropic reach.

Artists featuring in the exhibition include:

Bassam Al-Sabah | Aideen Barry | Emma Bourke | Ursula Burke | Margaret Corcoran | Seliena Coyle | Garvan de Bruir | Lorna Donlon | David Eager-Maher | Isobel Egan | Laura Fitzgerald | Liam Flynn | Sara Flynn | Paul Hallahan | Stevan Hartung | Joe Hogan | Bob Johnston | Rachel Joynt | Dragana Jurišić | Claire Kerr | Gillian Lawler | Eoin Mac Lochlainn | Colin Martin | Helen McAllister | Maria McKinney | Cecilia Moore | Fiona Mulholland | Ailbhe Ní Bhriain | Eily O’Connell | Nuala O’Donovan | Sinéad O’Dwyer | Bridget O’Gorman | Hilary O’Kelly | David O’Kane | Mark O’Kelly | Geraldine O’Neill | David Quinn | Annemarie Reinhold | Cara Thorpe | Jennifer Trouton | Kathy Tynan | Marcel Vidal | Gwen Wilkinson