Miriam de Burca, 'Stealing Weeds'
16th December 2006 – 20th January 2007
Miriam de Burca is currently completing a practice based PhD at University of Ulster. Recent projects include: The Golden Mile, Belfast 2003; Veneer/Folheado, Galeria Zedosbois, Lisbon, Portugal 2003; BE+FAST, Ljubljana, Slovenia 2004; The Belfast Way, Herzilya Museum of Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv, Israel 2005; Perspective, Ormeau Baths, Belfast 2005; Dogs Have No Religion, Artists From Northern Ireland at Czech Museum of Fine Arts, 2006.
Weeds have grown from soil recently fertilised by the ashes of an 11th Night bonfire. The wasteland’s annual cycle of construction and subsequent destruction has entered into its interval phase; the return of the small organisms. Benefiting from the minerals left by the fire, they begin to re-inhabit the area, slowly building up a temporary landscape.
A contradiction in terms, it would seem, ‘stealing weeds’. How can it be stealing if they are only weeds? And, if they are considered to be of no worth, why would one feel the need to go to such lengths? After all, they grow abundantly and thrive wherever the ground offers the minimum requirements for light, nutrition and drainage. They are considered a nuisance; they spring up where they are not wanted. Yet here they are being specially selected, uprooted, and taken away. Should anyone have objected to it?
Is it not a form of colonisation when one aggressively tears at the ground and takes elements of it away for scrutiny?
More important than the question whether digging up the plants is theft or not, is the fact that it feels like theft. The physical act of crossing through the implicit threshold and into the centre of the interface gives the sensation of making an imposition. There is a psychological heat still emanating from the ashen ground that causes one to hurry, to step and dig and leave quickly. (‘Careful or you’ll burn the soles of your feet.’)
Ultimately, there is no feeling of victory, no conquest made. Rather than gaining a sense of ownership over that proximate piece of land, the psychological boundary between ‘here and there’ remains as intact as before, the experience leaving only a slight feeling of guilt; that the weeds had been taken from someone else’s land; de facto stolen.
Miriam de Búrca
Miriam de Burca is currently completing a practice based PhD at University of Ulster. Recent projects include: The Golden Mile, Belfast 2003; Veneer/Folheado, Galeria Zedosbois, Lisbon, Portugal 2003; BE+FAST, Ljubljana, Slovenia 2004; The Belfast Way, Herzilya Museum of Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv, Israel 2005; Perspective, Ormeau Baths, Belfast 2005; Dogs Have No Religion, Artists From Northern Ireland at Czech Museum of Fine Arts, 2006.
Weeds have grown from soil recently fertilised by the ashes of an 11th Night bonfire. The wasteland’s annual cycle of construction and subsequent destruction has entered into its interval phase; the return of the small organisms. Benefiting from the minerals left by the fire, they begin to re-inhabit the area, slowly building up a temporary landscape.
A contradiction in terms, it would seem, ‘stealing weeds’. How can it be stealing if they are only weeds? And, if they are considered to be of no worth, why would one feel the need to go to such lengths? After all, they grow abundantly and thrive wherever the ground offers the minimum requirements for light, nutrition and drainage. They are considered a nuisance; they spring up where they are not wanted. Yet here they are being specially selected, uprooted, and taken away. Should anyone have objected to it?
Is it not a form of colonisation when one aggressively tears at the ground and takes elements of it away for scrutiny?
More important than the question whether digging up the plants is theft or not, is the fact that it feels like theft. The physical act of crossing through the implicit threshold and into the centre of the interface gives the sensation of making an imposition. There is a psychological heat still emanating from the ashen ground that causes one to hurry, to step and dig and leave quickly. (‘Careful or you’ll burn the soles of your feet.’)
Ultimately, there is no feeling of victory, no conquest made. Rather than gaining a sense of ownership over that proximate piece of land, the psychological boundary between ‘here and there’ remains as intact as before, the experience leaving only a slight feeling of guilt; that the weeds had been taken from someone else’s land; de facto stolen.
Miriam de Búrca
Points of Departure, Christine Mackey
Points of Departure
Christine Mackey
gallery one, nov 11 – dec 9
Christine Mackey gained a BA Sculpture in NCAD Dublin 1992, and MA Visual Performance, Dartington College, 2002. She was nominated as one of four finalists for the AIB Award 2004.
The work in this exhibition stems from Christine Mackey’s response to her travels in Central America and particularly her response to the terrain and the people she encountered there. She was artist in residence in Teor e/Tica, San José, the capital and largest city in Costa Rica, located in the center of the country, high on a mountain plateau.
The central premise of this work deals in terms of an anthropological (the study of humankind) practice but one it terms of collecting, through which a local knowledge of place is gained through an ongoing dialogical exchange both physically and virtually. Grant Kester, assistant professor of contemporary art history and theory at Arizona State University, has given a useful description of a dialogical relationship in artwork as follows: “a dialogical relationship that breaks down the conventional distinction between artist, art work and audience - a relationship that allows the viewer to "speak back" to the artist in certain ways, and in which this reply becomes in effect a part of the "work" itself” (Dialogical Aesthetics: A Critical Framework For Littoral Art, Grant Kester, Variant issue 9)
Christine Mackey’s method of working, which she terms ‘Process in Motion’ relates to the actual gaining of knowledge about a civilization or community through collation and discoveries. In essence the exhibition is an archival installation of her travels and experiences in Central America and research into its artists and their response to their environment. Thus she decided to build an archive of Central American artists that amounted to small art works, documentation of artists work on CD and DVD, catalogues and books related to Central American artists and current arts practice. She is appropriating methods used by archivists in this project. She doesn’t intend this project to be an exhaustive archive of Central American art and artists. Rather she is using archival methods to visually articulate her personal (and that of the artists she encountered) response to the local environment and populace. She is also entwining her own personal circumstance into the work, in this case the tragic death of her mother, Brigid, in a car accident whilst the artist was in Panama. She is placing subjective experience into mapping and the archiving resulting from that mapping.
The nature and use of archives are being changed, particularly through artists using methods and terminology traditionally used by archivists. Traditionally archives stood for a ‘dead-end’ comprehensiveness where as many documents as possible about a particular subject filled many boxes on dusty shelves. Artists by questioning the nature, role and use of data and their appropriation and creative updating of archival methods have created a debate about the definition of an archive.
Christine Mackey commissioned a number of artists, an art critic and an environmental sociologist to develop textual work or small sketches in relation to a short text that she gave them to respond to. She is interested in the tactics used by individuals and artists to navigate daily existence in environment where local and globalised strategies are imposed upon them by local and outside agencies. In this she is influenced by the French philosopher Michael de Certeau who explored the ‘tactics’ used by people to adapt to ‘strategies’ imposed upon them by for example government. She is also influenced by the anthropologist James Clifford’s recent work concerns the response of local politics to globalization. He is researching the effects of regional, national, and international power on different cultures by studying museums, festivals, tourism, and ethnic performance. Much of his work focuses the decolonization of the pacific region and its impact on the culture of the indigenous people such as native Californians pacific islanders.
This exhibition can be seen as an archival mapping of the artist’s journey in Central America. As the artist puts it: ‘the exhibition thus ‘constitutes an assembly of narratives and interchanges, moving from one place to another; an accumulation of voices between time zones and continents deliberated as a line across space and as a dedication to the memory of Brigid’.
The exhibition is accompanied by a limited edition 90 page full colour catalogue.
Christine Mackey
gallery one, nov 11 – dec 9
Christine Mackey gained a BA Sculpture in NCAD Dublin 1992, and MA Visual Performance, Dartington College, 2002. She was nominated as one of four finalists for the AIB Award 2004.
The work in this exhibition stems from Christine Mackey’s response to her travels in Central America and particularly her response to the terrain and the people she encountered there. She was artist in residence in Teor e/Tica, San José, the capital and largest city in Costa Rica, located in the center of the country, high on a mountain plateau.
The central premise of this work deals in terms of an anthropological (the study of humankind) practice but one it terms of collecting, through which a local knowledge of place is gained through an ongoing dialogical exchange both physically and virtually. Grant Kester, assistant professor of contemporary art history and theory at Arizona State University, has given a useful description of a dialogical relationship in artwork as follows: “a dialogical relationship that breaks down the conventional distinction between artist, art work and audience - a relationship that allows the viewer to "speak back" to the artist in certain ways, and in which this reply becomes in effect a part of the "work" itself” (Dialogical Aesthetics: A Critical Framework For Littoral Art, Grant Kester, Variant issue 9)
Christine Mackey’s method of working, which she terms ‘Process in Motion’ relates to the actual gaining of knowledge about a civilization or community through collation and discoveries. In essence the exhibition is an archival installation of her travels and experiences in Central America and research into its artists and their response to their environment. Thus she decided to build an archive of Central American artists that amounted to small art works, documentation of artists work on CD and DVD, catalogues and books related to Central American artists and current arts practice. She is appropriating methods used by archivists in this project. She doesn’t intend this project to be an exhaustive archive of Central American art and artists. Rather she is using archival methods to visually articulate her personal (and that of the artists she encountered) response to the local environment and populace. She is also entwining her own personal circumstance into the work, in this case the tragic death of her mother, Brigid, in a car accident whilst the artist was in Panama. She is placing subjective experience into mapping and the archiving resulting from that mapping.
The nature and use of archives are being changed, particularly through artists using methods and terminology traditionally used by archivists. Traditionally archives stood for a ‘dead-end’ comprehensiveness where as many documents as possible about a particular subject filled many boxes on dusty shelves. Artists by questioning the nature, role and use of data and their appropriation and creative updating of archival methods have created a debate about the definition of an archive.
Christine Mackey commissioned a number of artists, an art critic and an environmental sociologist to develop textual work or small sketches in relation to a short text that she gave them to respond to. She is interested in the tactics used by individuals and artists to navigate daily existence in environment where local and globalised strategies are imposed upon them by local and outside agencies. In this she is influenced by the French philosopher Michael de Certeau who explored the ‘tactics’ used by people to adapt to ‘strategies’ imposed upon them by for example government. She is also influenced by the anthropologist James Clifford’s recent work concerns the response of local politics to globalization. He is researching the effects of regional, national, and international power on different cultures by studying museums, festivals, tourism, and ethnic performance. Much of his work focuses the decolonization of the pacific region and its impact on the culture of the indigenous people such as native Californians pacific islanders.
This exhibition can be seen as an archival mapping of the artist’s journey in Central America. As the artist puts it: ‘the exhibition thus ‘constitutes an assembly of narratives and interchanges, moving from one place to another; an accumulation of voices between time zones and continents deliberated as a line across space and as a dedication to the memory of Brigid’.
The exhibition is accompanied by a limited edition 90 page full colour catalogue.
Live Archive 0 – 1
North West Visual Arts Archive
@ Context Galleries 2
11th November – 09th December 2006
The North West Visual Arts Archive presents Live Archive 0 – 1 the first of its Live Archive exhibition/project programme. Live Archive 0 – 1 is a linear history of Derry’s now defunct Orchard Gallery in installation form using gallery ephemera such as catalogues, invitation cards, gallery handouts and reviews.
The Orchard Gallery ran from 1978 to 2003 and established itself as an exciting and innovative institution at the forefront of contemporary art showing many of the leading names of Irish, European and world art. It put Derry on the world map as far as contemporary art was concerned. The installation is also an interactive research project which will offer the public the opportunity to contribute their memories, anecdotes and opinions of the gallery to the project thus creating a written narrative to accompany the exhibition. It is important that a regional arts archive protects and explores the local arts heritage of the area, as the nature of visual art is often very ephemeral and easily lost. But with the Live Archive projects this heritage will be updated and added to in an imaginative and thought-provoking manner. It is also very apparent that the meaning of the term ‘archive’ is no longer fixed. Many artists have appropriated archival terminology and strategies and used them in their own work thus there is now a fluidity of definition as to what archiving actually means. The North West Visual Arts Archive recognises this and will explore new methods of articulating the remit of the archive.
The North West Visual Arts Archive aims to accumulate, collate and make publicly available a coherently structured and easily accessible visual arts archive covering the local North West region, encompassing the counties of Derry, Fermanagh, Tyrone, Cavan, Donegal, Leitrim, Mayo, Roscommon and Sligo. The archive is continually added to and updated as new documents become available.
The archive is not intended to be merely a passive resource. Rather it is envisaged as a living entity with exhibitions, publications, lectures and workshops evolving from it. The Live Archive project is designed to visually articulate the remit of the archive and as a means of supporting local artistic practice and indeed the contemporary art scene in the North West. Archives have the capacity to cross artistic disciplines and boundaries and use multiple formats to initiate creative dialogue and projects with regard to past, present and future art production in the region.
At the end of Live Art: 0 – 1 The North West Visual Arts Archive will move to its permanent home in the Verbal Arts Centre, Derry though will continue to initiate off-site Live Archive projects, the first planned for spring/summer 2007 being a project looking at Derry art and artists working today.
Thanks to Colin Darke for permission to use his research notes on the early years of the gallery.
Live Archive 0 – 1:
Gregory McCartney: Project Coordinator
Cinza Parola: Research Assistant
Mara Cavalli: Research Assistant
Email: nwarchives@yahoo.co.uk
@ Context Galleries 2
11th November – 09th December 2006
The North West Visual Arts Archive presents Live Archive 0 – 1 the first of its Live Archive exhibition/project programme. Live Archive 0 – 1 is a linear history of Derry’s now defunct Orchard Gallery in installation form using gallery ephemera such as catalogues, invitation cards, gallery handouts and reviews.
The Orchard Gallery ran from 1978 to 2003 and established itself as an exciting and innovative institution at the forefront of contemporary art showing many of the leading names of Irish, European and world art. It put Derry on the world map as far as contemporary art was concerned. The installation is also an interactive research project which will offer the public the opportunity to contribute their memories, anecdotes and opinions of the gallery to the project thus creating a written narrative to accompany the exhibition. It is important that a regional arts archive protects and explores the local arts heritage of the area, as the nature of visual art is often very ephemeral and easily lost. But with the Live Archive projects this heritage will be updated and added to in an imaginative and thought-provoking manner. It is also very apparent that the meaning of the term ‘archive’ is no longer fixed. Many artists have appropriated archival terminology and strategies and used them in their own work thus there is now a fluidity of definition as to what archiving actually means. The North West Visual Arts Archive recognises this and will explore new methods of articulating the remit of the archive.
The North West Visual Arts Archive aims to accumulate, collate and make publicly available a coherently structured and easily accessible visual arts archive covering the local North West region, encompassing the counties of Derry, Fermanagh, Tyrone, Cavan, Donegal, Leitrim, Mayo, Roscommon and Sligo. The archive is continually added to and updated as new documents become available.
The archive is not intended to be merely a passive resource. Rather it is envisaged as a living entity with exhibitions, publications, lectures and workshops evolving from it. The Live Archive project is designed to visually articulate the remit of the archive and as a means of supporting local artistic practice and indeed the contemporary art scene in the North West. Archives have the capacity to cross artistic disciplines and boundaries and use multiple formats to initiate creative dialogue and projects with regard to past, present and future art production in the region.
At the end of Live Art: 0 – 1 The North West Visual Arts Archive will move to its permanent home in the Verbal Arts Centre, Derry though will continue to initiate off-site Live Archive projects, the first planned for spring/summer 2007 being a project looking at Derry art and artists working today.
Thanks to Colin Darke for permission to use his research notes on the early years of the gallery.
Live Archive 0 – 1:
Gregory McCartney: Project Coordinator
Cinza Parola: Research Assistant
Mara Cavalli: Research Assistant
Email: nwarchives@yahoo.co.uk
ruBbEr pLaNs, a film by alex cheung
In 2005, Context Galleries received a project award from the Promoting Interculturalism Programme of The Arts Council of Northern Ireland and Community Relations Council. Working with production company Plethora Productions, the project award was dedicated to developing and producing a new film and filmmaking skills base within the young Chinese community of the city of Derry. Rubber Plans, the film produced in the project and screened here, is the first short film by Alex Cheung, born and raised in the city, whose parents moved here from Hong Kong. The filmmaking process involved mentoring and training from Plethora Productions, Blast Furnace Recording Studios and Sound Engineer Kwame Daniels to a crew and cast from the young Chinese community of the city of Derry. Alongside the screenings here, the film Rubber Plans will be promoted to the international film festival circuit, further developing the potential of Northern Ireland’s first film from within the Chinese community.
Film screenings preview 8pm, Oct 7. Film screenings continue until Nov 4.
Film screenings preview 8pm, Oct 7. Film screenings continue until Nov 4.
Nuala Herron, Of Beauty in Ruin
Nuala Herron is a young painter from Derry, currently based in Edinburgh. The artist graduated in BA(Hons) Fine and Applied Art (Painting) at University of Ulster in 2003. Context Galleries is delighted to be bringing new work by this young artist to a first solo exhibition in her home town.
As a painter, I attempt to show beauty in what might often go unnoticed: everyday realities of the Domestic Life of a family, clothes hanging on a washing line, delapidated buildings.
In this collection of paintings I hope to show a glimpse of the frailty and transience of beauty in ruin. These ruins, delapidated and desolate scenes are a manifestation of my understanding of reality.
My paintings often evolve from photographs, some of which were taken while travelling around Europe. Rather than photographing the obvious I was more interested in delapidated buildings,walls and doors. These images were more significant to me and revealed more depth, value and beauty than their peeling surfaces suggested.
While I could appreciate the aesthetic of ruins I was also aware of a certain perversity by which we find pleasure in contemplating decay. With this in mind I have tried to create paintings 'Of Beauty in Ruin' which are honest and engaging.
Exhibition previews 8pm,Oct 7 Exhibition runs until Nov 4th
As a painter, I attempt to show beauty in what might often go unnoticed: everyday realities of the Domestic Life of a family, clothes hanging on a washing line, delapidated buildings.
In this collection of paintings I hope to show a glimpse of the frailty and transience of beauty in ruin. These ruins, delapidated and desolate scenes are a manifestation of my understanding of reality.
My paintings often evolve from photographs, some of which were taken while travelling around Europe. Rather than photographing the obvious I was more interested in delapidated buildings,walls and doors. These images were more significant to me and revealed more depth, value and beauty than their peeling surfaces suggested.
While I could appreciate the aesthetic of ruins I was also aware of a certain perversity by which we find pleasure in contemplating decay. With this in mind I have tried to create paintings 'Of Beauty in Ruin' which are honest and engaging.
Exhibition previews 8pm,Oct 7 Exhibition runs until Nov 4th
Nuala Herron, The Bogside
This painting was inspired by a photograph taken of my mother during the early part of The Troubles in 1971. It is set in Rosville Street, an area scarred by almost daily rioting, hijacking and vehicle burning. Although much of the scene is bleak and the truck has been burnt out, the prominence of the figure causes this to fade into the background. ( Painting: 3ft x 3ft, Oil on canvas)
Nuala Herron, Closed
From a photograph taken in Havana Cuba, I have attempted to capture the various textures seen on this boarded-up window: the peeling paint,the roughness of the stone,the burnt wood and flimsy cardboard.By building up several layers of paint and then scraping away some layers, I hoped to create a similar texture. (Painting: 3ftx3ft, Oil on canvas )
Nuala Herron, The Pipeline
Despite the poverty and devastation found in India, I have always been attracted to the colours and textures captured in many photographs taken. Having collected photographs for several years I had the urge to paint this particular scene, which shows a pipeline muscling snakelike through a suburb of Mumbai to supply rich areas with plenty of water. (3ftx3ft, Oil on canvas)
Nuala Herron, A Shadow Casted
In this painting, I have tried to capture a fleeting moment, something ordinary,everyday and potentially lost. The building itself is slightly decaying and the fact that it is painted prominently in shades of greys and brown enhances this. The white sheet which is being shook from the top window could signify many things, one being the continuity of life. ( painting: 3ftx3ft, Oil on canvas)
Nuala Herron, Besieged by Time
With an interest in washing lines and the feelings they connote for me, I wanted to bring this into at least one of my paintings. After discovering the photographer Robert Polidori, I came across a photograph called 'Palador La Guarida' from which I took inspiration for this painting. (3ftx3ft, Oil on canvas)
Nuala Herron, Searching
As a realist painter, I have always been drawn to painting older people and find it challenging to capture the the textures of their skin. I saw so much beauty and significance in this searching face which might be seen by many to be lost youth. I thought this was appropriate to include in my exhibition 'Of Beauty in Ruin.'
(3ftx3ft, oil on canvas)
(3ftx3ft, oil on canvas)
Nuala Herron ‘Beauty in Ruin’
In this collection of paintings the artist attempts to show a glimpse of the frailty and transience of beauty in ruin. Herron is exploring the picturesque, a time-honoured area of investigation for artists though of course putting it into a modern context. Picturesque meaning literally "in the manner of a picture; fit to be made into a picture" was a word used as early as 1703 (Oxford English Dictionary), and derived from an Italian term pittoresco, meaning, "in the manner of a painter," As meaning like beauty is transient the term ‘picturesque’ is now held in some distain and taken to mean simply pretty or charming.
In 18th Century philosophy and criticism it was however a valid stream of artistic exploration holding the middle ground between the beautiful (in the strictly traditional sense of classical i.e. Grecian aesthetic ideals) and the sublime (that appreciation of the vastness and terrible power of nature as articulated in the theories of philosophers Edmund Burke and Immanuel Kant). The picturesque borrowed from both extremes, conjoining elements of what was considered at the time ‘ideally’ beautiful (i.e. fitting the philosophical notions of beauty offered by notably the Greek philosopher and statesman Plato) with the non-rational (i.e. wild, instinctual, untamed and possibly dangerous) sublime. The notion of the picturesque was primarily articulated by the clergyman and writer William Gilpin in 1768 in a travel book designed for the English leisured classes, where he defined the picturesque as ‘that is what agreeable in a picture’. His perception of what was ‘agreeable’ however deviated from the norms of the time to include rugged landscapes and decaying buildings and even ‘decaying’ people. The artist includes portraits in her study of the potential beauty of decay and ruin. The equation of human aging with the decay of infrastructure has also a lengthy history which again leads ultimately back (in painting at least) to the theories of the Reverend Gilpin.
Unfortunately the picturesque became a fad and swarms of tourists pounced upon suitably craggy areas of England and Europe which eventually led to the devaluing of the term. Though even in the 19th Century the art critic and poet John Ruskin considered it a genuinely modern aesthetic category. Herron brings the picturesque into the contemporary context in this exhibition by including elements such as a study of an individual (her mother) in a post-riot landscape posing on a hijacked and subsequently burned vehicle and a landscape showing industrial intrusion, decay and pollution in India.
Herron’s paintings are often also studies in surface and colour which show the artist’s interest in portraying to a level which almost reaches the abstract, building facades, doors and shuttered windows. She takes the picturesque and often mixes it with painterly concerns in regard to technique and intertwines comments upon domesticity. These buildings are old and decaying but they are lived in. These areas have a massive pipeline running through it but people live and work there.
The artist often bases her painting on photographs, not always her own, thus appropriating other’s images for her own devices and reinterpreting them to give them new meaning. This can be seen in particular with her reinterpretation of a photograph by Robert Polidori of a building in Havana, Cuba in which the artist articulates her appreciation of decay and beauty and gives prominence to the obvious domestic associations of the building by highlighting the white sheets on the washing line.
(Text by Gregory McCartney)
This the artist’s first solo show in the Context though she did appear in the ‘Take Away’ group show in 2004.
The exhibition runs 7th October – 4th November 2006
In 18th Century philosophy and criticism it was however a valid stream of artistic exploration holding the middle ground between the beautiful (in the strictly traditional sense of classical i.e. Grecian aesthetic ideals) and the sublime (that appreciation of the vastness and terrible power of nature as articulated in the theories of philosophers Edmund Burke and Immanuel Kant). The picturesque borrowed from both extremes, conjoining elements of what was considered at the time ‘ideally’ beautiful (i.e. fitting the philosophical notions of beauty offered by notably the Greek philosopher and statesman Plato) with the non-rational (i.e. wild, instinctual, untamed and possibly dangerous) sublime. The notion of the picturesque was primarily articulated by the clergyman and writer William Gilpin in 1768 in a travel book designed for the English leisured classes, where he defined the picturesque as ‘that is what agreeable in a picture’. His perception of what was ‘agreeable’ however deviated from the norms of the time to include rugged landscapes and decaying buildings and even ‘decaying’ people. The artist includes portraits in her study of the potential beauty of decay and ruin. The equation of human aging with the decay of infrastructure has also a lengthy history which again leads ultimately back (in painting at least) to the theories of the Reverend Gilpin.
Unfortunately the picturesque became a fad and swarms of tourists pounced upon suitably craggy areas of England and Europe which eventually led to the devaluing of the term. Though even in the 19th Century the art critic and poet John Ruskin considered it a genuinely modern aesthetic category. Herron brings the picturesque into the contemporary context in this exhibition by including elements such as a study of an individual (her mother) in a post-riot landscape posing on a hijacked and subsequently burned vehicle and a landscape showing industrial intrusion, decay and pollution in India.
Herron’s paintings are often also studies in surface and colour which show the artist’s interest in portraying to a level which almost reaches the abstract, building facades, doors and shuttered windows. She takes the picturesque and often mixes it with painterly concerns in regard to technique and intertwines comments upon domesticity. These buildings are old and decaying but they are lived in. These areas have a massive pipeline running through it but people live and work there.
The artist often bases her painting on photographs, not always her own, thus appropriating other’s images for her own devices and reinterpreting them to give them new meaning. This can be seen in particular with her reinterpretation of a photograph by Robert Polidori of a building in Havana, Cuba in which the artist articulates her appreciation of decay and beauty and gives prominence to the obvious domestic associations of the building by highlighting the white sheets on the washing line.
(Text by Gregory McCartney)
This the artist’s first solo show in the Context though she did appear in the ‘Take Away’ group show in 2004.
The exhibition runs 7th October – 4th November 2006
Resident 4
Resident 4
An exhibition of works produced in the 4th year of the Context Galleries Education and Outreach Project: a collaborative project between the following artists and organisations:
Lilliput Theatre Group and Laura Saenz of The Dancing Tree have produced a video entitled ‘What is Love?’ exploring participants perceptions of love.
Greysteel Women’s Activity Group and Tina McLaughlin have made a series of beautiful patchwork quilts that articulate the tradition use of patch-working in the Derry area.
Ballylaw Women’s Group and Martha Lewtas have created a series of delicate embroidered pieces which display great skill and dexterity of all who participated.
Maybrook Adult Training Centre with Tracy Cullen and Danny Mc Laughlin have produced video and a collage of photographs exploring the group’s various activities in locations around Derry.
Finally, Context Galleries is pleased to have part of the Wheelworks ‘Respect’ project in the gallery. This project helps to increase tolerance and respect for each and every community in our society.
Galleries 1 & 2
Exhibition previews 6pm Saturday 2nd September
Exhibition runs until September 30th
Supported by Derry City Council, Adapt, Lottery Awards For All, and The Art Council of Northern Ireland
An exhibition of works produced in the 4th year of the Context Galleries Education and Outreach Project: a collaborative project between the following artists and organisations:
Lilliput Theatre Group and Laura Saenz of The Dancing Tree have produced a video entitled ‘What is Love?’ exploring participants perceptions of love.
Greysteel Women’s Activity Group and Tina McLaughlin have made a series of beautiful patchwork quilts that articulate the tradition use of patch-working in the Derry area.
Ballylaw Women’s Group and Martha Lewtas have created a series of delicate embroidered pieces which display great skill and dexterity of all who participated.
Maybrook Adult Training Centre with Tracy Cullen and Danny Mc Laughlin have produced video and a collage of photographs exploring the group’s various activities in locations around Derry.
Finally, Context Galleries is pleased to have part of the Wheelworks ‘Respect’ project in the gallery. This project helps to increase tolerance and respect for each and every community in our society.
Galleries 1 & 2
Exhibition previews 6pm Saturday 2nd September
Exhibition runs until September 30th
Supported by Derry City Council, Adapt, Lottery Awards For All, and The Art Council of Northern Ireland
three painters
patrick bradley
julius guzy
peter hughes
exhibition previews 8pm saturday august 5
exhibition runs until august 26
Context Galleries is delighted to present a Summer show of recent work by three painters based in Derry. Patrick Bradley, Julius Guzy, Peter Hughes each last exhibited with the Context as part of the Maiden City Festival 2005. At that time Peter Hughes was awarded a commission from the festival. This Summer exhibition gives an opportunity to view a larger selection of the artists’ works.
Patrick Bradley
Patrick Bradley is an artist and gallerist who has been active in Derry for over twenty years. He has created several temporary exhibition spaces in the town for contemporary art.
He studied at Belfast Art College 1984-1987; is co-founder of Redemption! art gallery in Derry 1988; founder of Strike! art gallery in Derry, 2000. His most recent solo exhibition was at the Work House Museum, Derry, 2004.
My work is organic in nature, there are usually no preset ideas. I start with marks, gesture and colours, letting them develop, trusting the knowing nature of the mind unclouded by thoughts, aiming for a balance, a ‘rightness’.
Peter Hughes
Peter Hughes studied at Belfast College of Art 1995-96 and Exeter College of Art 1996-98. His work has been exhibited in Germany frequently over the last 20 years. Recent exhibition include The Gasyard, Derry; a major show in the Context in 2003; and in 2005 an award from the Maiden City Festival Commission, for his work in a group exhibition at the Context.
My paintings represent a search for a form of visual energy.
‘A seeking of charisma within the self
A seeking of the self within the world’
Julius Guzy
Julius Guzy has lived and worked in Derry since 1988. His work is viewable on his website, juliuspaintings.co.uk Since June 2003 he has been teaching himself to draw figures directly from his imagination and since June 2005 his pictures have become overtly political. In most cases their titles tell you exactly what they're about.
He will be exhibiting the following:
A large (90 x 64 cm) sketch for a painting entitled: the genocide in Rwanda represented as a large satyrical papier mache sculpturein the Passeo de las Germanias in Gandia, Spain. (In Valencian Spanish, Falla is a word which means "a thing of no value")
Sketch for a painting about the Separation Wall built by the Israeli govenment entitled: How we pacified our genocidal neighbours.
An anti-war against Iraq christmass card, with holy family and the three kings, camels and shepherds, head hooded by canvass bag Iraqi father and child, soldiers and rest of the world watching television, exploding people, burning figures fleeing the bombing of Babylon, and the heavens happilly spinning without a care for what we do.
A set of sketches concerning global warming, flying spaghetti monsters and pirates including a major watercolour sketch for a painting of Pirates attacking Tower of Babel.
A painting entitled Our garden of Eden or the cities of Babel bombing the world, their buldozers uprooting trees and flattening and burning the planet, the shooting in June 2006 of Bruno: one of the last brown bears in Europe, the wanton anihilation of all the animals including the killing by hanging of a giraffe, our children breaking young trees and stamping on snails, and Julius caught in the flames of creative passion painting landscapes.
Then if there is the space for it, he will be showing a work in progress: a reconstruction of a lost painting by Leonardo da Vinci entitled the Battle of Anghiari, which Julius believes to be a satirical work about the glorification of war.
julius guzy
peter hughes
exhibition previews 8pm saturday august 5
exhibition runs until august 26
Context Galleries is delighted to present a Summer show of recent work by three painters based in Derry. Patrick Bradley, Julius Guzy, Peter Hughes each last exhibited with the Context as part of the Maiden City Festival 2005. At that time Peter Hughes was awarded a commission from the festival. This Summer exhibition gives an opportunity to view a larger selection of the artists’ works.
Patrick Bradley
Patrick Bradley is an artist and gallerist who has been active in Derry for over twenty years. He has created several temporary exhibition spaces in the town for contemporary art.
He studied at Belfast Art College 1984-1987; is co-founder of Redemption! art gallery in Derry 1988; founder of Strike! art gallery in Derry, 2000. His most recent solo exhibition was at the Work House Museum, Derry, 2004.
My work is organic in nature, there are usually no preset ideas. I start with marks, gesture and colours, letting them develop, trusting the knowing nature of the mind unclouded by thoughts, aiming for a balance, a ‘rightness’.
Peter Hughes
Peter Hughes studied at Belfast College of Art 1995-96 and Exeter College of Art 1996-98. His work has been exhibited in Germany frequently over the last 20 years. Recent exhibition include The Gasyard, Derry; a major show in the Context in 2003; and in 2005 an award from the Maiden City Festival Commission, for his work in a group exhibition at the Context.
My paintings represent a search for a form of visual energy.
‘A seeking of charisma within the self
A seeking of the self within the world’
Julius Guzy
Julius Guzy has lived and worked in Derry since 1988. His work is viewable on his website, juliuspaintings.co.uk Since June 2003 he has been teaching himself to draw figures directly from his imagination and since June 2005 his pictures have become overtly political. In most cases their titles tell you exactly what they're about.
He will be exhibiting the following:
A large (90 x 64 cm) sketch for a painting entitled: the genocide in Rwanda represented as a large satyrical papier mache sculpturein the Passeo de las Germanias in Gandia, Spain. (In Valencian Spanish, Falla is a word which means "a thing of no value")
Sketch for a painting about the Separation Wall built by the Israeli govenment entitled: How we pacified our genocidal neighbours.
An anti-war against Iraq christmass card, with holy family and the three kings, camels and shepherds, head hooded by canvass bag Iraqi father and child, soldiers and rest of the world watching television, exploding people, burning figures fleeing the bombing of Babylon, and the heavens happilly spinning without a care for what we do.
A set of sketches concerning global warming, flying spaghetti monsters and pirates including a major watercolour sketch for a painting of Pirates attacking Tower of Babel.
A painting entitled Our garden of Eden or the cities of Babel bombing the world, their buldozers uprooting trees and flattening and burning the planet, the shooting in June 2006 of Bruno: one of the last brown bears in Europe, the wanton anihilation of all the animals including the killing by hanging of a giraffe, our children breaking young trees and stamping on snails, and Julius caught in the flames of creative passion painting landscapes.
Then if there is the space for it, he will be showing a work in progress: a reconstruction of a lost painting by Leonardo da Vinci entitled the Battle of Anghiari, which Julius believes to be a satirical work about the glorification of war.
the aai awards 21
new architecture 21
exhibition previews 8pm saturday august 5th
exhibition runs until august 26th
This exhibition is our annual display from the winners of the AAI Awards, the series of annual awards for excellence in architectural design presented by The Architectural Association of Ireland. This year features the AAI Awards 2006, the 21st in the series.
The award winning architects’ projects presented are:
The Downes Bronze Medal may be awarded at the discretion of the Assessors. This year, the jury awarded the Downes Bronze Medal to:
Poustinia, Glencomeragh House of Prayer, Kilsheelan, Clonmel, Co Tipperary. Architects Bates Maher
The maximum number of AAI Awards is seven. This year the jury selected seven projects for Awards. They are (in alphabetical order by architect):
Sorrento Heights, Dalkey, Co Dublin Boyd Cody Architects
City House and Workplace, 41 Francis Street, Dublin 8 Donaghy + Dimond Architects
Extension to Dept of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, Trinity College Grafton Architects
Engineers Ireland, 20 Clyde Road, Dublin 4 McCullough Mulvin Architects
House at Crouch End, London Niall McLoughlin Architects
Brooke Heussaff Library, 607 South Circular Road, Dublin 8 NJBA Architects 13a Thor Place, Stoneybatter, Dublin 7 ODOS Architects
A number of entries may be selected for Special Mention. This year the jury selected 8 projects for Special Mention. They are (in alphabetical order by architect):
House, Richmond Place, Rathmines, Dublin 6 Boyd Cody Architects
Two Up Two Down, John Dillon Street, Dublin 8 de Paor Architects
Kitchen-Garden-Party-Wall, 13 Arran Road, Drumcondra, Dublin 9 Donaghy + Dimond Architects
Martin Valley Sculpture Park, Cork FKL Architects
Reuben Street Apartments, Dublin 8 FKL Architects
Ijburg, Blok 4, Amsterdam GE Maccreanor, Maccreanor Lavington Architects
No.33 St. Kevin's Road, Portobello, Dublin 8 David O'Shea, Darrell O'Donoghue, ODOS Architects
Athlone Civic Centre, Library & Town Square Keith Williams, Richard Brown, Keith Williams Architects
The assessors for the AAI Awards 2006 were as follows: Andrej Hrausky, architectural critic, architect, and director of DESSA Architecture Centre and Association, Ljubljana (Slovenia); Carmeé Pinõs, architect, Barcelona (Spain); Dominic Steven, architect, Leitrim; Prof. Ciaran Benson, professor of psychology, University College Dublin (distinguished non-architect).
exhibition previews 8pm saturday august 5th
exhibition runs until august 26th
This exhibition is our annual display from the winners of the AAI Awards, the series of annual awards for excellence in architectural design presented by The Architectural Association of Ireland. This year features the AAI Awards 2006, the 21st in the series.
The award winning architects’ projects presented are:
The Downes Bronze Medal may be awarded at the discretion of the Assessors. This year, the jury awarded the Downes Bronze Medal to:
Poustinia, Glencomeragh House of Prayer, Kilsheelan, Clonmel, Co Tipperary. Architects Bates Maher
The maximum number of AAI Awards is seven. This year the jury selected seven projects for Awards. They are (in alphabetical order by architect):
Sorrento Heights, Dalkey, Co Dublin Boyd Cody Architects
City House and Workplace, 41 Francis Street, Dublin 8 Donaghy + Dimond Architects
Extension to Dept of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, Trinity College Grafton Architects
Engineers Ireland, 20 Clyde Road, Dublin 4 McCullough Mulvin Architects
House at Crouch End, London Niall McLoughlin Architects
Brooke Heussaff Library, 607 South Circular Road, Dublin 8 NJBA Architects 13a Thor Place, Stoneybatter, Dublin 7 ODOS Architects
A number of entries may be selected for Special Mention. This year the jury selected 8 projects for Special Mention. They are (in alphabetical order by architect):
House, Richmond Place, Rathmines, Dublin 6 Boyd Cody Architects
Two Up Two Down, John Dillon Street, Dublin 8 de Paor Architects
Kitchen-Garden-Party-Wall, 13 Arran Road, Drumcondra, Dublin 9 Donaghy + Dimond Architects
Martin Valley Sculpture Park, Cork FKL Architects
Reuben Street Apartments, Dublin 8 FKL Architects
Ijburg, Blok 4, Amsterdam GE Maccreanor, Maccreanor Lavington Architects
No.33 St. Kevin's Road, Portobello, Dublin 8 David O'Shea, Darrell O'Donoghue, ODOS Architects
Athlone Civic Centre, Library & Town Square Keith Williams, Richard Brown, Keith Williams Architects
The assessors for the AAI Awards 2006 were as follows: Andrej Hrausky, architectural critic, architect, and director of DESSA Architecture Centre and Association, Ljubljana (Slovenia); Carmeé Pinõs, architect, Barcelona (Spain); Dominic Steven, architect, Leitrim; Prof. Ciaran Benson, professor of psychology, University College Dublin (distinguished non-architect).
Martina Corry
Martina Corry
Photography
Exhibition previews 8pm, June 17th Exhibition runs until July 22nd
Martina Corry is a visual artist working within the field of photography and graduated from the University of Ulster in 1999 with an MFA (with Distinction) specialising in photography. This is her first solo show at Context Galleries.
Most of the artist’s images are made without using the optics (i.e. the lamp, lens, colour, gobo and mirror system that produces a projected image) of the camera. In the darkroom images are generated through actions carried out on the photographic paper. Actions such as creasing, crumpling, folding, cutting and drawing engage directly with the picture surface as a material in itself.
Corry is interested in how photographs are experienced simultaneously as image and object, tangibly real and yet somehow remote. Not merely images, but seen, encountered and negotiated as real objects. Often employing a single motif or action, previous works have explored ideas concerning memory and intimacy through the absence of figuration. Recent works have explored memory and vision through the activity of drawing and mark making.
The use of materials such as fibre optics (specially manufactured, hair-thin glass fibre for the transmission of communications in the form of light) in the image making process addresses the fundamentals of the chemical based photographic process namely the play of light on the surface of a light sensitive material. Fibre optics are today used widely in communication systems. In the technology’s early development, optical transmission was possible due to the “phenomenon of total internal reflection, which can confine light in a material surrounded by other materials with lower reflective index, such as glass in air.” (Jeff Hecht)
The images are made as opposed to having been taken- in the way a camera could be said to passively ‘take’ a photograph. The image is built up over a period of time and rather than merely representing a past event records and represents itself, inextricably linking the real and the represented.
Many of the works in this exhibition are luminograms. (A luminogram is the resulting image caused by exposing the photosensitive medium to light without the intervention of an object. The light is modulated by varying the intensity through distance from the photosensitive surface, power of the light source, or by the use of filters or gels or motion of the light. The paper can itself be shaped to create the desired effects in the final image.) Gottfried Jäger describes these as “the result of pure light design; the rudimentary expression of an interaction of light and photosensitive material… a kind of self representation of light.”
Photography
Exhibition previews 8pm, June 17th Exhibition runs until July 22nd
Martina Corry is a visual artist working within the field of photography and graduated from the University of Ulster in 1999 with an MFA (with Distinction) specialising in photography. This is her first solo show at Context Galleries.
Most of the artist’s images are made without using the optics (i.e. the lamp, lens, colour, gobo and mirror system that produces a projected image) of the camera. In the darkroom images are generated through actions carried out on the photographic paper. Actions such as creasing, crumpling, folding, cutting and drawing engage directly with the picture surface as a material in itself.
Corry is interested in how photographs are experienced simultaneously as image and object, tangibly real and yet somehow remote. Not merely images, but seen, encountered and negotiated as real objects. Often employing a single motif or action, previous works have explored ideas concerning memory and intimacy through the absence of figuration. Recent works have explored memory and vision through the activity of drawing and mark making.
The use of materials such as fibre optics (specially manufactured, hair-thin glass fibre for the transmission of communications in the form of light) in the image making process addresses the fundamentals of the chemical based photographic process namely the play of light on the surface of a light sensitive material. Fibre optics are today used widely in communication systems. In the technology’s early development, optical transmission was possible due to the “phenomenon of total internal reflection, which can confine light in a material surrounded by other materials with lower reflective index, such as glass in air.” (Jeff Hecht)
The images are made as opposed to having been taken- in the way a camera could be said to passively ‘take’ a photograph. The image is built up over a period of time and rather than merely representing a past event records and represents itself, inextricably linking the real and the represented.
Many of the works in this exhibition are luminograms. (A luminogram is the resulting image caused by exposing the photosensitive medium to light without the intervention of an object. The light is modulated by varying the intensity through distance from the photosensitive surface, power of the light source, or by the use of filters or gels or motion of the light. The paper can itself be shaped to create the desired effects in the final image.) Gottfried Jäger describes these as “the result of pure light design; the rudimentary expression of an interaction of light and photosensitive material… a kind of self representation of light.”
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