Resident (installation shot): featuring works by Hilary Morton


Resident (installation shot): featuring works by Mark Hill, Julius Guzy, Alie Rutherford


Resident

Context Galleries runs the Artist in Resident project to bring visual arts out to communities who would not be able to readily avail of such activities. This year we are showing the work produced by 10 communities in the Derry City Council area as they worked with our professional artists.

St Bernadette’s Pre School PlaygroupThe playgroup staff asked the artist to assist them with signage for their building as it is hard to locate in this built up area. The small children sponged and hand printed the surface of the sign and it was finished by the artist in mosaic lettering. To be installed on the building at Hazlebank, Derry
Artist: Hilary Morton

Praxis Care GroupThe Richmond Hall in Eden Terrace gathers local people with a learning disability to share daily activities such as craft work and such recreational activities. They painted freely with much encouragement from the artist who is an experienced painter himself. A love of life and colour is evident in the paintings and the large 8 x 12 mural.
Artist: Julius Guzy

Travellers Support Group
The tradition of metal work and knowledge of horses in the Travelling community are reflected in the large flying horse constructions in the middle of the gallery. Their enthusiasm matched with the metal work skills of the artist produced this spectacular work which will be installed at the Ballyarnett Park site,
141 Racecourse Road, Derry
Artist: Mark Hill

New Building Community and Environmental Association
This rural village have an annual festival for the whole community and they decided to work on a sea theme making flying fish wind socks, octopus costumes and a sea creature to wander through their parade. Dressmaking and carnival arts skills, often using recycled materials are used to great effect.
Artist: Sarah Lewtas

Lilliput Theatre Company
This is a theatre group located in the Playhouse whose membership is learning disabled adults . They worked with Todd Herman and Amanda Coslor from the Dancing Tree, San Francisco, who specialise in doing art work with marginalized groupings. The film Welcome to my Home, running in gallery 2, is a touching testimony to their love of home, family and neighbourhood.
Artists: The Dancing Tree

Galliagh Women’s Group
Traditional photography had been the original description for the work on this residency but with the enthusiasm and demands of the women and the expertise of the artist the end product evolved into a light box display incorporating local history, imagery from their lives and neighbourhood. Displayed in gallery 2.
Artist: Denzil Browne

Melrose Day Centre
The adults attending this supportive day centre were invited to paint to their hearts content with quality canvasses and paints and brushes. Some were done in 5 minutes, some in hours! More and more people joined in as the enthusiasm for colour and freedom of expression spread!
Artist: Julius Guzy

Fountain Youth Club
The children of the club decided on the varied imagery in this mural which can be seen on their building in the Fountain. They participated in every aspect of the work from design to completion and it reflects the places they would love to visit by rail, sea and air, their beloved Samba band and the disliked CCTV cameras!
Artist: Blaze FX

Creggan Pre School Training Trust
The children from their After Schools Club worked with artist Hilary Morton to produce a large collective banner displaying the loves of their lives! And the adventures of marbleing and its unexpected results are displayed in the large frames, all to be displayed in their building.
Artist: Hilary Morton

Shantallow Community Arts
A Night at the Oscars is a film which records an evenings entertainment as part of the Shantallow Arts Festival. Local people in Gallaigh voted for their favourite films and then Oscars were awarded for the winners. The cinema, a local hall, was beautifully fitted out for the evening with red carpet and plush curtaining!
Artist: Ailie Rutherford


For information about the artists or communities on the Artist in Residence Project contact the Project Officer, Sheila Fairon at email aircontext@yahoo.co.uk.

The gallery is open 11.00am to 5.00pm Tuesday to Saturday and the exhibition runs for 2 weeks until Friday 21 October 2005.

Maeve McElligott - shed featured in exhibition, Urban Notes


Maeve McElligott, Grafitti Image, Context Galleries


Maeve McElligott, Urban Notes

Maeve McEligott studied at Crawford College of Art & Design, Cork and at in Chelsea College of Art & Design, London. She is based in Artspace Studios, Galway, and has exhibited in Ireland since 2000 in shows including Iontas 2000 & 2003, and Crawford Open, 2003. This is the artist’s first solo show. It features photography, installation and audio, reflecting the artists concerns:

My work revolves around social and political concerns.
While using mediums, such as drawing, photography, installation, and sound, the ideas and inspiration comes from social dialogue. The work revolves around public interaction either in the creation of the art works or the use of them. My role is as a facilitator, documenter and participant in the work, not as sole creator or owner. Since 2002 I have worked in photography series and installations that stem from political and cultural discourse.

Since 2002, I have been photographing graffiti, in London and Ireland. The photographs are large close up images of graffiti that often hint at location and site. Mostly political in concerns, the visual effect is often similar to abstract painting due to the tone and pattern of the images captured. Personal sentiments scrawled on toilet doors, and political beliefs etched on street posters, show how graffiti releases reactions, feelings of boredom, confusion, helplessness and hostility in modern society. I look for what is generally manifested only in fleeting attitudes, private fears
and cryptic gestures, finding visual indicators of what is usually kept private and out of sight. The questions that graffiti poses as opposed to the answers it provides are intriguing. Who does this? What social situation are they from? Is graffiti an anarchist action, or a common day street language? What is its relevance to a modern society? Is it a visual creation, altering the city landscape, or a tool of destruction? As an ongoing record I see the documentation of these images beneficial to social and cultural history and study.

I have also been photographing a car park shed for the last 6 months. The shed has been a car park attendant’s office for 8 years in Galway city in a school car park, run by local students every Saturday. With an interior that is covered in graffiti, the shed is a testament of time and boredom. As a found object the value of the shed is not in it’s artistic creation, but in standing as an artefact of boyhood activity. I have secured the loan of it for exhibition and use.

‘A GUN IN YOUR MOUTH’ is a looped 2.45 minute sound piece recorded on mini-disc in an underground station in London. Featuring an American/Anglo couple arguing after antiwar demonstrations in 2002, the piece was recorded unknown to those involved, using a handheld mike.
The piece demonstrates communication, and cultural differences. The recorded conversation resembles the graffiti images in that it is short, cryptic, and raises concerns about nationality, identity and communication.


Exhibition previewed 8pm Saturday 10 October 2005
Exhibition ran until October 1

Multiplicity

George Bolster Kim Keever Vanessa O’Reilly
Declan Clarke David Krippendorf Anne Tallentire
Mark Cullen Breda Lynch Jon Paul Villegas
Linda Dennis Niamh McCann

Multiplicity was an international group exhibition featuring eleven artists based in USA, UK and Ireland. It brought together artists that are based in Ireland and exhibit internationally, Irish artists based in other countries, and international artists who have followed similar migratory paths. Now scattered across the globe, all have been cultural immigrants at some stage.

With the increase of travel, developments in technology and the dissemination of information through the internet, artists have access to the globe and their references and influences come from a range of sources.
Multiplicity takes its starting point from the idea of ‘New Internationals’ – that we can now have multiple nationalities, practices, identities and ideals – as outlined by French philosopher Jacques Derrida.

A 48 page full colour catalogue supported by the Arts Council of Ireland has been published to accompany the exhibition.

Multiplicity was curated by Irish artist George Bolster and American curator Koan Jeff Baysa. Multiplicity was first presented at Fota House, County Cork in Autumn 2004. The exhibition of Multiplicity at the Context further develops the Context’s aims of supporting emerging artists and curators from Ireland and developing links between emerging artists in Ireland and artists abroad.

Previewed Thursday 11 August 8pm
Exhibition ran until September 3

Works
Declan Clarke, Henry The Fift, 2002,Video 6 minutes
Mark Cullen, Ab-Ex 3.6, 2001, Digital drawing; Ab-Ex 2.0, 2001, Digital drawing ; Ab-Ex 4.0, 2001, Digital drawing ; Ab-Ex 7.0, 2001, Digital drawing
Vanessa O’Reilly, Eddy, 2003, Video, 40 minutes
Linda Dennis, If Fate be hard, 2004, Pencil on paper; So simple is the heart, 2003, Pencil on paper; Thou have hast a day, 2003, Pencil on paper; Untitled, 2002, Pencil on paper; Dear was he, 2003, Pencil on paper; Not long ago, 2003, Pencil on paper; Have naught in them, 2002, Pencil on paper; Such were her eyes, 2002, Pencil on paper; To pilot me, 2003, Pencil on paper
Breda Lynch, Marykate and Ashley, 2005, Pencil and colouring pencil on paper
David Krippendorf, Blame, 1999,59 seconds
Breda Lynch,Aisling and Niamh, 2005, Pencil and colouring pencil on paper
George Bolster, Addicted to heavenly Music, 2005, Pencil on paper
Jon Paul Villegas, Untitled X1111 (from Placeholder),Glue and pigment sculpture
George Bolster, Religion becoming Myth , 2004, Sycamore, walnut burr, imboia veneers on wood, Oil paint, feathers, gold-plated steel and Ribbon.
Niamh McCann, Suspension, 2004, Video, 3 minutes
Anne Tallentire, Company, 2003,,Video, 8.25 minutes
Kim Keever, Wheel Piece, 2004, Video, 54 minutes

St Columbs Cathedral & its Environs, image/design, Denzil Browne


St Columb's Cathedral & its Environs

As a new venture, the Maiden City Festival in collaboration with The Playhouse and Context Galleries presented an exhibition of local artists’ interpretations on the theme:

“St Columbs Cathedral & its Environs”

The exhibition featured work across many media – paintings, photography, sculpture, video – by artists including:

Roger Barsdale
Jonny Bell
Paola Bernadelli
Patrick Bradley
Denzil Browne
Julius Guzy
Alison Hancock
Peter Hughes
Rory McAteer
Brian O’Doherty
Declan O’Donnell
George Row


A panel considered and choose an overall winner,the painter Peter Hughes, who received a Commission from the Maiden City Festival.

All submissions were exhibited in the Context Gallery as part of the Maiden City Festival 8th-10th August, 2005.

Brian O'Doherty, Ambient City, 16 x 20 oil painting, 1996


Brian O'Doherty, Suck On This, 16x14, oil & pastel on canvas, 2002


Brian O'Doherty

galleries 1 & 2

Brian O’Doherty – Paintings 1992-2005

July 16 – August 6 2005


Brian O’Doherty has been active in design and the visual arts in Derry and the North West for many years. Alongside his practice as a painter, he has lectured in Art throughout the North-West, and was Designer & Artistic Director at the Design Factory, Derry, working on political and campaigning graphics for a broad spectrum of environmental, political, and community groups. His works have been bought for private collections in Ireland, Hong Kong, Australia and the USA, and purchased for public collections in the Irish Office of Public Works and Donegal County Council.

This exhibition gives an audience an opportunity to see a major public display of the artist’s work for the first time, featuring over 40 works paintings, and a soundscape assembled by the artist to create an immersive environment in which to encounter his work.

Brian O’Doherty’s paintings have an immediate attraction; they are vibrant, colourful, powerful examinations of the themes of city and country, often featuring well-known scenes of Derry and Donegal. His works often embrace a strong ecological message, examining how the life of the country is abused by development. The artist’s cityscapes portray his encounter with the city to be full of vivid illusions, and imaginative perspectives.


This exhibition acts both as a retrospective, with many works on display borrowed from public and private collections throughout Derry and Donegal, as well as featuring New Work produced during a period in South Africa in Summer 2005.

Alomgside paintings, Gallery Two features the soundscape:
Storm in a teacup ( Fanad live and unplugged) (28 mins, audio)
A sound painting by Mark Hill, Brian O’Doherty and Ambrose Reynolds with help from Mary, Hans, Hilary and Thomas. All sounds were recorded on Fanad in January 1995 and processed at MA Studio Liverpool over the following weeks.

Several works are for sale:

Title: ‘Stoneybatter’ (Oil on board) – 2000 - £ 2,100
Title: ‘Rubicon’ (Oil on canvas)- 1998 – £ 2,100
Title: ‘Trippy Trance’ (oil/pastels) 1993-94 - £ please enquire
Title: ‘Untitled’ (oil/pastels) 1993-94 - £ 700
Title: ‘Trippy Trance from Silicone Zone’ (oil on canvas) 2002-04- £ 4,900
Title: ‘Planetization’(oil on board) 1999-02 – each £ 420
Untitled (oil/pastels) 2005 - £ 350
Untitled (oil/pastels) 2005 - £ 350
Title: ‘Channel Hopping’ (oil/pastels) – 2005 - £ 560
Title: ‘The Discovery Channel’ (oil/pastels)- 2005 - £ 650
Title: ‘Hadyda in Cape Town’ (oil/pastels) – 2005 - £ 560
Title: Untitled (oil/pastels)-2005 - £ 280
Title: ‘No News is Good News’ (oil/pastel) – 2005 - £ please enquire
Title: ‘Press the Button’ (oil/pastels) -2005 - £280
Title: ‘Ghost in the Machine’ (oil/pastels) – 2005 - £ 280


Thanks to Donegal County Council and the many private collectors who have generously loaned work

Terry Crossan & Family
Mr M Doherty & Family
Mr & Mrs J Irwin
Dr D McGinley & Family
Joe Mulheron & Family
Jackie Mullan & Family
The Shamrock Bar, Falcaragh, Co Donegal


Exhibition previews Saturday July 16 8pm

Supported by The National Lottery through the Arts Council of Northern Ireland