West Cork Arts Centre

The Edge of the Landscape – William Crozier

The Edge of the Landscape is the title of an upcoming exhibition which opens this weekend at Uillinn. It will show some of the later work of William Crozier (1930 – 2011), a Scottish born artist who considered himself more Irish than Scottish as his parents were from Ballinderry, Co Antrim. He adopted Irish citizenship in 1973 and purchased a cottage at Kilcoe, West Cork, in the early 1980s. Although he worked both here and in Hampshire for the rest of his life, most of his later paintings dwelled on the Irish landscape – specifically the splendours of West Cork, which are so familiar to us.

The meeting of land and sea was a recurring theme in Crozier’s work. The quay at Turk Head, above, inspired the header on this post – painted by Crozier in 2003. We might wonder at the eye of the artist that pictures the scene in such vivid colours, but anyone who has lived in West Cork will be familiar with his palette: the rocks, the fields, the lanes, wildflowers, water and ever-changing skies provide all the colours in his paintings, tints, tones and shades which are successfully pulled into unexpected compositions.

Katharine Crouan – Bill Crozier’s widow – has written to me “…Bill was not, in any way, a topographical artist but you can see in his work – particularly from 1984-95 – the stimulus  the landscape provided. He spoke of loving the ‘glamour’ of the West Cork landscape, referring to the glitter of water and sunlight on foliage after rain and the dark shadows that came out of nowhere. For him it was all magical…”

‘Kilcoe Strand (From Peninsula)’, painted by William Crozier in 2011

I am reminded of Peter Lanyon, the St Ives artist (who was, interestingly, the subject of a book titled At the Edge of Landscape): he famously said that, as a painter, he needed to “…get under the skin of the landscape…” That need informs his work, which is abstract rather than specifically landscape-based yet inspired, as he stated, from flying over his native Cornwall and – by exploring the mine shafts – tunnelling underneath it. For me, William Crozier has the same regard for his West Cork homeland and successfully expresses his relationship with it through the richness of his work.

Toe Head, West Cork (upper picture) was the inspiration for many paintings. Lower works: Toe Head 1989, (left), and Wolf’s Castle, Toe Head 1998 (right – Richard Barrett) 

William Crozier was a prolific painter – he estimated that he had painted more than 12,000 pictures, each executed in a single session. The landscape-inspired works are just one part of an enormous opus. He did not overlook the sometimes hard realities of his surroundings. Cocks of hay drying in a field may appear a romantic ‘rural idyll’, but are equally a portrait of an economically unviable small-holding.

William Crozier in his studio c 2009

The exhibition of a selection of Crozier’s work produced since 1985 is showing at Uillinn: West Cork Arts Centre from 15 July to 31 August, and later in the year some of his earlier works will be shown at IMMA: The Irish Museum of Modern Art from 12 October 2017 to 8 April 2018. Both exhibitions are curated by Seán Kissane (Curator, Exhibitions, IMMA), who will be presenting a talk on the work at 6pm this Friday, 14 July, in Uillinn, following which the exhibition will be formally opened by Sarah Glennie, the Director of IMMA. An important new publication edited by Katharine Crouan and Seán Kissane and designed by Peter Maybury accompanies the exhibition with texts by Mark Hudson, Katharine Crouan, Seán Kissane, Riann Coulter, Enrique Juncosa, and Sarah Turner.

Below – Departure from the Island, William Crozier 1993 (Flowers Gallery). Note that copyright on all works rests – unless otherwise stated – with the William Crozier Estate

Postscript – In the Tracks of the Yellow Dog

Uillinn – the West Cork Arts Centre gallery in Skibbereen – has a great facility in its exhibitions – a Discovery Box which can be used by children (or anyone else) to express their reactions to whatever is on show. I went in the other day to have a last look at the West meets West show of the work of Cornish Artists (hurry! – it closes on Saturday 8 July) and was delighted to see that someone had used some elements from the box to place a little installation under Matthew Lanyon’s painting aptly titled ‘Skibbereen’.

The Discovery Box in action at Uillinn – left, with Phil Booth’s impressive construction Gwennap Head in the background and – right – set against Tony Lattimer’s wonderful ceramics. (Photos courtesy of West Cork Arts Centre)

The Discovery Boxes are tailor-made for each exhibition. This one has been assembled by Sarah Ruttle and includes (amongst a multitude of inspired shapes) fish and fishing nets, miniature coiled ceramics reminiscent of Tony’s work – and a yellow dog! Why a yellow dog? Well, one of the most striking exhibits in this show is a tapestry designed by Matthew Lanyon – In the Tracks of the Yellow Dog.

Upper picture – the Discovery Box installation under Matthew Lanyon’s ‘Skibbereen’ painting and (lower left) the tapestry with (lower right) the paw print of the Yellow Dog substituted for the artist’s signature

The tapestry was manufactured by Flanders Tapestries in Belgium: cottons, wools and acrylics were selected in close collaboration with Matthew to achieve a tonal harmony from his original design. The yellow dog, a reference to Yellow-Dog Dingo from Kipling’s Just So stories, makes only one appearance; the paw print from a dried out salt lake in central Western Australia substitutes for the artist’s signature. 

We will miss the excitement and impact of those large, very Cornish works once they are packed up and sent back across the Celtic Sea, but that’s the nature of a gallery: the moment has to be enjoyed and then set aside as it will be soon replaced by other stimuli. Following on from West meets West at Uillinn is The Edge of the Landscape a major retrospective of the art of William Crozier (1930-2011), opening on Friday 14 July at 7pm. Born in Scotland, Crozier spent much of his time in Kilcoe, West Cork, from the mid-1980s, and this exhibition will present many of his works which have been inspired by the landscapes so familiar to us.

Below: Matthew Lanyon’s Skibbereen

Saintly Pigs and Curious Carvings

This is the last in the series of West meets West posts, which have been running alongside the exhibition of Cornish artists at the West Cork Arts Centre’s gallery in Skibbereen – Uillinn.

The painting (above left) by Cornish artist Alex Smirnoff (courtesy of Bryony Harris) wonderfully illustrates the story of Saint Credan who, like Saint Piran before him, travelled from Ireland to convert the heathens in Cornwall to Christianity in the 7th century. Our Saint Credan is looking a little melancholy. That’s because he accidentally killed his own father and therefore spent the rest of his life as a swineherd in penance. As a compensation it has to be said that he raises very fine pigs! Behind him is the ancient parish Church of Sancreed, very accurately portrayed with its huge colony of rooks in the trees behind. In the same picture is one of the five ancient crosses in the churchyard. The church itself dates from the 14th century: the crosses may be much older than that.

Above right is from a fine study of the entrance to Sancreed churchyard – by the Irish-born ‘Father’ of the Newlyn School, Stanhope Alexander Forbes. It is titled ‘October’ and was painted in 1898. Sancreed was the church attended by many of the Newlyn School artists, and the churchyard contains the graves of some of them, including Forbes and his wife Elizabeth Armstrong. In the church is a memorial designed by Forbes to commemorate their only son, Alec, who was killed in the Battle of the Somme in 1916. Close by is a holy well, described by Amanda.

The crowning glories of this church, however, are the unusual carvings on the rood screen inside, which date from the 16th century. Last week I showed you the carving of the Chough – a bird closely linked with Cornwall and Ireland. Today I am illustrating some more of these carvings, and these show very strange beasts indeed! Some of them can be recognised as heraldic; no doubt they all would have carried symbolism when they were placed here five hundred years ago.

A basilisk is hatched by a cockerel from the egg of a toad. Be careful, because it has a lethal glare and poisonous breath. The basilisk carved in Sancreed church (above left) looks fairly personable, while Alex Smirnoff’s version of it (above right – inspired by the Sancreed carving) should be given a wide berth. Look at the shadowy figures – and the ancient cross – hiding in the background of Alex’s painting: typical of his work.

It’s not just strange creatures that are depicted at Sancreed (and there are many more of them) – there are figures as well:

Above are two panels with ‘Janus’ figures, male and female and – on the right – is a most curious character who seems to be a musician playing, perhaps, a serpent or a cornett. But he seems to be part bird, or wearing a feathered cloak. Below is a three-headed figure and a representation of an angel, perhaps: could this actually be Saint Credan hiding in his own church?

All this might seem a far cry from the exhibition in Skibbereen, which features three contemporary artists from Cornwall… But it certainly is art from Cornwall – and in a church which was founded by an Irish Saint; and a church, moreover, which had a special meaning for many of the Newlyn School artists, including Irish-born Stanhope Forbes, founding ‘Father’ of that school.

This series consist of twelve posts (including this one). You can link to them individually through this list:

Off to Skibbereen
A Saint’s Day – Ciarán and Piran
West meets West
Connecting with St Ives
A Watery Tale
Ways West
Sheep’s Head: Searching for Cornish Miners
Artists of the Western Coasts
Up and Running!
Forbes – An Irish Artists in Cornwall
Choughs – and their travels
Saintly Pigs and Curious Carvings

There’s still time to visit Skibbereen to see the exhibition of the Cornish artists’ work: West meets West is on until July 8 at Uillinn. Enjoy it!

Artists of the Western Coasts

We look forward to welcoming our guest Cornish artists to Uillinn for the West meets West exhibition which opens this Friday – 2 June at 6pm – and runs through to 8 July. The three artists are excellent representatives of the vibrant arts scene in Cornwall, which was established from the late 19th century in Newlyn and St Ives and has been burgeoning through the late 20th century and into the 21st, especially with the opening of the spectacularly successful Tate St Ives gallery in 1993.

Header: Looking towards The Land’s End – Cornwall’s beautiful scenery has attracted artists and tourists for over a hundred years (photo by Phoebe Harris). Above: Tate St Ives – opened in 1993 – a spectacularly successful venue for cultural art tourism (photo by http://www.artfund.org)

Our artists are all from the West Penwith peninsula – the furthest landfall in the UK’s westernmost county of Cornwall. Phil Booth, Lamorna, will be showing some of his large sculptural relief constructions. Phil is known for these works but is also a talented landscape designer. His has spent many years teaching design and sculpture in Japan: he has intensively researched the form and meaning of traditional Japanese Gardens in Kyoto and is able to provide a high quality design service for anyone who is planning to construct a Japanese garden, or who might want to introduce Japanese elements into their own gardens.

Above left: Philip Booth. Above right: one of his relief constructions which will be shown at Uillinn – Beach Boulder

Matthew Lanyon sadly passed away while preparing work for our Uillinn exhibition. We will be showing many of his larger paintings (some are seven metres long!), but also some tapestry and a laminated glass piece which will be seen for the first time here in Skibbereen. Matthew’s father – Peter Lanyon – was one of the notable members of the St Ives School of Artists in the mid twentieth century. Peter was a painter and a teacher, and had a strong influence on many artists – not only in Cornwall and the UK but in Ireland as well. Matthew’s Cornish heritage, therefore, is very special in the context of West meets West.

The Late Matthew Lanyon with one of his huge paintings – The Listening Sea

Tony Lattimer lives in Penzance and has his studios and kilns on a beautiful wild acreage close to The Land’s End. His ceramic sculpture is large and visually stunning. Like the other exhibiting artists, he is recognised internationally. Tony has won the prestigious Emilia-Romagna Prize at Premio Faenza International Ceramic Art Competition, Italy twice – in 2005 and 2013. The MIC – International Museum of Ceramics in Faenza – is reputed to be the world’s largest ceramics museum and one of the liveliest art institutions in Italy. Tony has also exhibited at the Tate St Ives and many other UK galleries, and we are pleased that he is able to bring a selection of his new works over to Skibbereen.

Above left: Tony Lattimer preparing work for the kiln in his Land’s End studio. Above right: some of Tony Lattimer’s recent smaller works

Phil Booth and Tony Lattimer will be at the opening, and in the gallery at noon on Saturday 3 June to take part in a panel discussion on the artists’ work. Matthew will also be represented at this event. Please come! The following week – on Saturday 10 June, also at noon, I (Robert Harris) will be giving an illustrated talk titled Chasing the Light – Why the Artists Moved West. I will outline the historic connections and remarkable similarities between the two most westerly peninsulas of Britain and Ireland over a three and a half thousand year timespan, and explore the lives and work of artists who settled in both communities.

While this exhibition focusses on contemporary art from Cornwall it is part of a larger project envisaged by Uillinn (the West Cork Arts Centre). It is hoped that artists from West Cork will visit Cornwall to exhibit their work next year, and that this will become part of a regular cultural exchange between Cork and Cornwall in the future. There is a fascinating story to be told about the artists and craftspeople who arrived in West Cork from the late 1950s onwards and helped found a cosmopolitan, creative and free-thinking community here. Ceramicists, textile designers, printmakers, painters and writers all contributed to the mix. Because of that heritage there are many artists and creative people who continue to be attracted to the area today. Believe me, it’s the most stimulating place to live!

Don’t miss – West meets West – the work of contemporary Cornish artists, at Uillinn, Skibbereen, from 3 June to 8 July. Opening at 6pm on Friday 2 June.

Below: stirrings in Ballydehob: in the 1960s potter Christa Reichel and batik artist Nora Golden set up The Flower House as a shop, studio, cafe and haven for artists. “…Word spread that West Cork was a beautiful, creative place waiting to be discovered…” (Alison Ospina – West Cork Inspires) Photo courtesy Andrew Street

West meets West

Picturesque Newlyn, Cornwall – the fishing village was the centre of a major art movement in the late 19th and early 20th centuries

I have been working hard with Uillinn – West Cork Arts Centre‘s fantastic new gallery in Skibbereen – to bring over an exhibition of the work of contemporary Cornish artists, which opens in June. West meets West will be the launch of a continuing programme which sees the art and culture of Cork and Cornwall being shared, to the mutual benefit of all working artists and art lovers – and to residents and visitors.

Greenstone – a canvas by the late Matthew Lanyon, one of Cornwall’s important contemporary artists whose work will be shown at Uillinn in June this year

Why Cornwall and Cork? And, particularly, why these westernmost peninsulas of Ireland and England? Well, as you may have noticed from past posts on this Journal, historic links between the two geographical areas go back a very long way. Starting between three and four thousand years ago copper was mined on Mount Gabriel and was mixed with tin from Cornwall to produce a revolutionary new metal – Bronze. This material was hard enough to make tools and weapons – therefore a practical commodity: also it does not rust. It has, too, been used to make bells for centuries, so its properties include sonority. In fact the word bronze probably originates from the Medieval Latin bronzium, in modern Italian bronzo, meaning ‘bell metal’. Regardless of all this, the important thing we know is that relations between the west of England and the west of Ireland were well enough advanced to set up regular trading between the two outposts in those far-off days.

Tony Lattimer, international award winning ceramic artist based near The Land’s End in Cornwall, whose large ceramic sculptures will be shown in West meets West, Skibbereen, June of this year

In a recent post I alluded to the incredible debt that Cornwall owes to us in West Cork because we gave them their patron saint – Saint Piran. The fact that the gift wasn’t intentional shouldn’t delay us too long: we tied Cape Clear’s Saint (whose Irish name was Ciarán) to a millstone and threw him over a cliff. Instead of meeting his doom he miraculously surfed the millstone across to the Cornish coast, where his landing place – Perranzabuloe – is named after him, and where he is royally celebrated on March 5th every year, with all the zeal that we show to our own St Patrick!

Apart from metal mining and saints, another important connection is shared fishing grounds. From medieval times onwards (and perhaps before) the Cornish fishing fleets put out from Mousehole and Newlyn to follow the pilchard and herring shoals across to Roaringwater Bay. This is really where art comes into our story, as it was the way of life of some of the Cornish fishing communities that attracted artists to that western County of England in the late nineteenth century, once the arrival of the Great Western Railway in Penzance had established the direct connection with London. Newlyn was an early focus, and a young man from Dublin, Stanhope Alexander Forbes, an up and coming young painter in the plein air tradition, made his home there in 1884 and stayed for life. Forbes found in Cornwall a true ‘rural idyll’: an unspoiled countryside where life was simply lived, and a rugged coastline with a magical quality of light. Known as the ‘Father of the Newlyn School’, he gathered around him like-minded artists who recorded (and perhaps romantically idealised) the way of life of the communities there, and that special quality of the light, in canvasses which are highly admired and respected today.

A preliminary sketch by Stanhope Alexander Forbes for a painting known as On Paul Hill (Paul is the name of a village between Newlyn and Mousehole in Cornwall). Forbes painted in the Plein Air style, out of doors and from real life

I made my home in Cornwall for a number of years, before I decided that I hadn’t come far enough to the west, and followed the pilchards and herring myself to Roaringwater Bay, where I now look down on them from my eyrie in Nead an Iolair (although the shoals are today much diminished). During my years in Cornwall I came to know and respect the stories of the artists from Victorian years up to the present day. The ‘Newlyn School’ which Forbes represented was only one piece of the jigsaw there: we will explore others later. Art is probably Cornwall’s biggest asset. Ever since the opening of the Tate Gallery in St Ives – established there because of that town’s historic links with artists and craftspeople of international repute – ‘art tourism’ has grown to become a major year-round driver of the local economy.

Newlyn old and new: left – Stanhope Alexander Forbes in 1900 painting outside Trelyn, Boase Street, Newlyn – my home for 25 years! Right – Newlyn today is Britain’s largest fishing port

Cornwall is home to a number of artists renowned today in the British Isles. I got to know many of them when I lived in Newlyn. Three of them will be exhibiting in Uillinn from 3 June to 8 July this year: Philip Booth, Matthew Lanyon and Tony Lattimer. Their work is large scale, stimulating and mutually complementary: constructions, canvasses and ceramic sculptures. Please make a note of the dates now: this exhibition is important for West Cork and for Cornwall. Please don’t miss it!

Below: Philip Booth, from Lamorna, Cornwall, will be showing a number of his spectacular relief constructions at West meets West, Uillinn, Skibbereen, in June. This one is titled ‘Formed in Running Water’

Formed in Running Water

Scissors Cut Paper Wrap Stone – a Review

ball graphic

The current exhibition at Uillinn, the West Cork Arts Centre gallery in Skibbereen, is a ‘must’ for anyone interested in contemporary artistic expression – but be aware it’s challenging. Having seen the exhibition being assembled before the opening I decided that I would visit it twice – firstly without giving myself any prior knowledge of the subject matter – and then once more, following a gallery tour led by Alison Cronin of Uillinn and a gallery talk by Jennifer Mehigan, one of the participating artists.

large reflection

I’m very concerned, nowadays, by how ‘art’ is presented, especially ‘art’ which seems divorced from traditional expectations (painted pictures, sculptures etc). I’m fine with all fresh forms of art – and frequently excited by them – but I sometimes wonder whether our artists think about their communication with us… Do they feel that the work should in every way be self-explanatory (we will come away fully informed just by looking at, taking in and understanding the work) – or should their sometimes complex ideas and presentations be explained by accompanying texts, gallery tours, catalogues etc? So I tend to approach every new exhibition with an open mind, hoping for clarity but – firstly – looking for impact from the work. I suppose, at my age, I still think of ‘art’ as being something which should initially stir me, excite me or overwhelm me just through the visual sense: I’m perfectly happy to stand back and look through complex layers of understanding (if necessary) to find the reason for the existence of the artwork, provided it has initially given me that excitement – or whatever emotion – because it will then have drawn me in and made me curious. Some contemporary exhibitions do leave me flat and unstimulated (not many!) and then I have no desire to probe them any further: for me they have failed, but that’s only me, I know. Ultimately, ‘art’ is probably the most subjective of cultural expressions. And that’s all good!

spectators 3

John Russell’s huge backlit print – and two of Eva Fàbregas’s beasts that move around the gallery floor, apparently with a life of their own! 

So – how did I react to my initial, completely unguided, tour of Scissors Cut Paper Wrap Stone? I’m pleased to say that I was stimulated – and positively so. I’m always attracted visually by large scale, colour, and things out of the ordinary: that gives you some clues! There are certainly unexpected experiences here. You walk into the first gallery and are hit with a huge print vibrating off the wall, its boundaries emphasised by coloured light behind it. It’s a riot of red – half-human and half- beast figures in a sort of Star Wars tableaux. But then, once you have taken that in you realise that the floor is alive – crawling with more strange beasts that look as though they have had another life as something mundane and practical and are now reincarnated to follow you around the gallery – perhaps to threaten you. What are they? Gallery assistant Kevin enlightened me when he came in to dismantle and repair the mechanics of one of these errant aliens: they are all made from packaging materials fitted with electric motors, and their trajectories across the gallery floor are completely random, referencing, perhaps, their previous lives travelling unsung and unrewarded all around the world. It’s funny how we give life to inanimate (but in this case animate) objects that appeal to us: perhaps it’s a jump back to childhood days when we made things from cereal packets and egg boxes but were then convinced that we had breathed existence into the monsters, dragons, spaceships, princesses (maybe) that we produced. Talking to the gallery staff I was fascinated to hear that some visitors were absolutely convinced that these pieces of mobile packing were imbued with very sophisticated artificial intelligence and really did follow them around and confront them! Remember, this was still before I had any knowledge of the intentions or stimuli behind the exhibits.

balcony capture

Moving upstairs to the second gallery I found the walkway obstructed by rotating panels of some material (was it glass?) that seemed to be engraved with semi transparent images: they looked like iconic landscape scenes. As I watched, I realised that at certain points in their spinning I was able to see through them, but at the same time also see reflections on their surfaces – of me, of the gallery, of the view through the windows… I liked these very much, and the dymanic nature of their movement and the unpredictable refractions and reflections. I was keen to know how their conception fitted into what I had seen previously downstairs, but I couldn’t guess.

The spinning panels – ‘Orphan Transposition’ – are by Alan Butler and feature acrylic panels laser-etched with images of Yosemite National Park: they also have an intentionally accidental life of their own through the changing surface reflections

The second gallery held more surprises – and delights. Approaching through a narrow corridor I could see layers: more big, colourful panels on the far wall, more hanging, spinning sheets of opaque transparency, and a very contrasting soft, organic shape seeming to slither across the floor. As I came closer I realised that this shape was not slithering – or moving at all, disappointingly: it was a way of seating people in front of a screen, and was linked in to an array of very funky ‘designer’ headphones (white) by a jumble of thick, red chords.

upper gallery close

phones and cables 2

I sat and watched the ‘show’ – and listened to clunky music and a strange commentary – and then realised I was completely out of my depth! I had no clue what was going on. My attempt to experience the exhibition without any preparation or foreknowledge had failed. This applied to all the other work in the upper gallery also: superb large graphics on the walls and floors, printed acrylic sheets suspended on smart steel stands, and, in a darkened cubicle, a film of puppets which reminded me completely of ‘Bill and Ben the Flowerpot Men’! Now, how many of you remember them, dear readers? I don’t suppose any of the contributing artists are of my generation – so, is that pure coincidence? Anyway, I could not feel a sense of connection between the exhibits: but I liked the experiencing of them, nevertheless.

okea projection

puppet show

Upper – Eva Fàbregas’s The Role of Unintended Consequences (Sofa Compact) – which can be enjoyed on the comfort of a squishy serpentine furniture sculpture – and, lower – puppets feature in Andrew Norman Wilson’s Reality Models

It all began to come together and make sense when I took the gallery tour and artist talk (having first read an accompanying written commentary). Wonderful!  The title of the exhibition – Scissors Cut Paper Wrap Stone – which I only knew as a childhood game (and one which I played with my own children) is also the title of a science fiction novella written by Ian McDonald (from Belfast) in 1994. It’s evidently something of an iconic work for those who follow the genre (I don’t particularly, although I have read a little sci-fi). I now know that the participating artists were asked to familiarise themselves with the book and respond to it in a way which they feel comments on our present times: there was no collaboration as such between the artists on the overall exhibition (as I understand), but the curators have put the work together in a way that does begin to set out a narrative.

digital panels

In the optional (€12) catalogue that accompanies the show, Alissa Kleist & Matt Packer (the curators) write an introduction. I was struck by this paragraph:

…From an artistic perspective, Scissors Cut Paper Wrap Stone [ie the book] can be read as a wishful fantasy of artistic power. It describes visual art without recourse to the systems of academic analysis and understanding that have defined the art-history books for the past century and more; instead it promises an encounter with art that frees the ‘rapture’ that Jean-Francois Lyotard describes as being harboured within art itself: an art that hits us straight to the core of our physical being…

cow pic 3

Wow! isn’t that what I was trying to say about my approach to new exhibitions – looking for impact from the work, being stirred, excited or overwhelmed before having any understanding of it? It’s a wonderful way of putting it: …the ‘rapture’ harboured within art itself… Suddenly, I realise that I’ve approached this exhibition exactly as the curators would want me to: first I have the visceral experience, then comes the understanding! Or is it that I have now walked into the exhibition and become a part of it?

Back to the book (via the catalogue):

…In the book, McDonald tells the story of a young student, Ethan Ring, who develops the ability to create digital images that bypass rational thought and control the mind of the viewer…

I’m worrying now – am I being controlled by the digital images in the exhibition?

…Ethan develops a technology of ‘fracters’ – mind-controlling images that have the power to heal, cause pain, induce tears or ecstasy. The utopian promise of this image technology is short-lived as Ethan finds himself blackmailed into employment by the ‘Public Relations’ department of the ‘European Common Security Secretariat’, who demand that he uses the fracters for the purposes of interrogation and assassination, as and when they require…

This is frightening stuff. The book was written in 1994 but in our own time we are suddenly being confronted by concepts of ‘fake reality’ – and aren’t we shocked by governments who seem to be veering off into nonsensical directions, apparently against the wishes of the public majority? Suddenly, I’m seeing an uncanny relevance which these artists – inspired by the concept of the book – have made to our own predicaments. From the catalogue again:

…In a way that is typical of the cyberpunk genre of science fiction, Scissors Cut Paper Wrap Stone is written with the strategy of combining prosaic everyday miseries with the ‘cognitive estrangement’ of a world that has been accelerated beyond our control…

cow stuff

A detail from one of Jennifer Mehigan’s stunning prints made from collages of three-dimensional digitally generated models: this one illustrates the Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy virus – better known as Mad Cow Disease

Lastly, I should mention the gallery talk by Jennifer Mehigan. She has only been involved in the Uillinn, Skibbereen, iteration of this show. Knowing that now, I think the overall exhibition will have been considerably poorer without her contribution. I think my strongest instant reactions (rapture?) have been to her large digitally produced panels. Now that she has explained their conception I am even more impressed. She asked us to consider the cow…

The cow is an unnatural beast. Human intervention keeps it permanently fertile so that it produces food for us. It gives us its milk: it dies for us. But also – again through human intervention – it eats itself. This generates the Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy virus – better known as Mad Cow Disease. This kills humans. Be afraid…

Jennifer’s gorgeous panels are made using a highly complex technology – 3 dimensional modelling software. With this software she has constructed a cow’s stomach, bacteria found inside the human gut, the mad cow disease virus, and Drombeg Stone Circle (that’s the link to human intelligence). She’s put all these things together into bizarre, visually stunning collages and presented them to us as compelling two-dimensional images leaning up against the end wall in Uillinn where they sparkle and shine in the sunlight: we are seeing the fracters and, behind them, the government departments who are manipulating world perceptions of reality.

from above

Powerful images from a strong exhibition. Step beyond the images and we see power – or a commentary on power. Statements are being made here – perhaps subversively – about the world in which we live today. That’s great – that’s art.

resting

The exhibiting artists are: Alan Butler, Pakui Hardware, Jennifer Mehigan, Andrew Norman Wilson, Clawson & Ward, Eva Fàbregas, John Russell

Scissors Cut Paper Wrap Stone is on at Uillinn, Skibbereen until 25 February 2017. The gallery is open Mondays to Saturdays from 10.00am to 4.45pm: there are guided gallery tours on selected Saturday mornings – check with Uillinn: enlightening and well worth attending! Here’s Alison Cronin in action:

in the gallery