Author Archives: SummerhallTV

Jordan Pilling : Life Source Code

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24 November – 19 December 2015, Talbot Rice Gallery.

A naïve exploration through the affects of our relationships with the pervasive digital technologies we surround ourselves with.

As a being unable to swim, both the glossy surface of my MacBook Pro screen and a vast expanse of water become indistinguishable, both impenetrable and containing unreachable body on the other side.

Using performative actions both online and offline, video based, sculptural installations become the evidence and working platform for this thought.

Riccardo Buscarini and Richard Taylor : In Parting Glass

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Till 9 March 2016 11:00-18:0 Venue: Laboratory Gallery, Summerhall

Choreographer Riccardo Buscarini and visual artist Richard Taylor work together for the first time, transforming the glass cabinets in Summerhall’s Laboratory Gallery into living archives to explore memory, intimacy and exposure. Paired by curator Holly Knox Yeoman, the duo use a magpie approach to draw from their personal experiences and cultural identities to mix ready-made objects, sculpture and sound to partner live and recorded performances.

Buscarini and Taylor are the same age, star sign, sexuality, and have the same forename. These coincidental affinities have inspired them to make further enquiries into how these idiosyncrasies might be extracted in the laboratory, as well as archive, setting.

The exhibition, preceded by an intensive period of collaboration, is bookended by live iterations of the work on display – both at the private view and during a closing event in March 2015. Part dissection of their personalities and part history of their individual routes to Summerhall itself, the results are tactile, immersive and narrative-led.

Summerhall Curated

Sandra Kelly : SOMA Gallery, Waterford

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Sandra Kelly introduces the SOMA gallery in Waterford as it embarks on a new phase of development. “Our mission is to foster within society, an awareness, understanding and involvement in the visual arts through policies and programmes which are excellent.” Ahead of the official opening on 10th December Sandra outlines a collaboration with Labyrinth and a programme of events running up to February 2016.

www.somacontemporary.com

 

Triskel Arts Centre

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Triskel Arts Centre was founded in 1978, and moved to its current home in Tobin Street in 1986. Triskel celebrated its Thirtieth Anniversary in 2008. As Cork’s principal Arts Centre our mission has always been to commission, present, and promote the contemporary arts in Cork, and to ensure the arts are made available to as wide a public as possible.

In 2009 Triskel began a process of re-invention, partly because Christchurch, a beautiful 18th Century building, was to be restored by Cork City Council, linked to the existing building, and given to Triskel to manage. Triskel also began this process because it is important to continue to be relevant for artists, practitioners and the public at large.

On 15th April 2010, that became a reality when the new Complex was launched. Triskel now acts as a true Centre for the Arts. It houses the Theatre Development Centre, in the what was the “auditorium”. Managed by Corcadorca, it is a facility and a service for professional theatre makers where new work can be developed, tested, and presented in a professionally managed and sympathetic environment. The TDC is a place where the Theatre Community can meet to discuss ideas, issues, and to socialise.

www.triskelartscentre.ie

Valerie Byrne : all things considered

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‘all things considered’ is an exhibition featuring new works by forty artist members of Cork Printmakers, which will be displayed at the CIT Wandesford Quay Gallery, from Thursday 3rd until the 23rd December 2015.

The artists explore a wide variety of subjects from Debbie Godsells representations of aspects of Irish life, to depictions of the straw people of Dingle by Deirdre McKenna, while Frieda Meaney explores the nature of the human body through etching, Helen O Keeffes mono screen-printed landscapes dance with colour, in contrast, Nikki Tait interprets the countryside through fine engraving and Sylvia Taylors mysterious narratives come alive through the intricate use of linoblock.

The prints are available in limited editions and with the average price range of between €100 – €250, this is a great opportunity to buy an affordable piece of art, as well as supporting professional artist printmakers.

Gallery Opening Hours; Monday – Saturday, 10am – 6pm, closed Sundays

CIT Wandesford Quay Gallery, Wandesford Quay, Clarkes Bridge, Cork City

Tel; (021) 4335210, email: ccad.gallery@cit.ie, website: ccad-research.org/gallery

Cork Printmakers, tel: (021) 4322422, email: info@corkprintmakers.ie

Karl Finn Graham : Rose Street Artist Christmas Project

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 The Rose Street Project is a public ‘exhibition’ in a central city location, open to everyone visiting Edinburgh, day and night until early January. The invited artists are from a range of disciplines including illustration, ceramics, textiles and printmaking.
The result has been less about traditional Christmas display, but instead has created highly individual installations in a new, public context, demanding new and fresh approaches to the invited artists’ creative practices.

Nine artists have worked with Rose Street traders using shop front and window displays as galleries for their work over Christmas. Artists include: RA Ceramics, Anupa Gardner, Jyoti Sigouin, Sheila Masson, Fiona Hermse, Louise Smurthwaite, Tania Czajka, Astrid Jaekel and Izzy Bocchetti.

Photos courtesy of Sheila Masson

Lucy Elvis : Discussing Footfall

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Articulating the Value of Artist Led Organisations in Ireland

FOOTFALL is a national research project devised by 126 Artist-Run Gallery to explore the position of small arts organisations in Ireland and Northern Ireland. The aim of the research programme is to develop new, nuanced means to articulate the value of the work done by smaller, diverse and risk-taking visual arts organisations. FOOTFALL examines what separates the activities of artist-led organisations from those of other art institutions and what role they play in artists’ careers. The year long programme of research was coordinated by 126 Chairperson Shelly McDonnell, and comprised direct consultation with the organisations, practitioners and audiences of the artist led sector. A Plenary Session was devised and facilitated by Ailbhe Murphy and Ciaran Smyth of Vagabond Reviews as part of the FOOTFALL Symposium in November 2014. The symposium – coordinated by 126 Artist-Run Gallery and Galway City Curator-in-Residence Megs Morley – featured invited speakers Jason E. Bowman, Valerie Connor and Mikael Löfgren, and provided a platform for discussion on key issues pertaining to the artist led sector.

The FOOTFALL Research Report, written by Joanne Laws, was published in March 2015. Focusing on the Irish context, the report outlines why artist led organisations are established, how they are run and the type of work they do. Those perceived to benefit from this work, and the inherent ‘value’ of such activity, is discussed. Drawing on emerging discourse in the field, possible methods for measuring ‘non-economic’ value are presented. The perceived strengths of artist led organisations are identified, followed by a discussion on the central issues of sustainability and artistic labour. The report concludes with thoughts on whether there is a need for further organisational forms within the artist led sector in Ireland. FOOTFALL does not aim to represent the agenda(s) of artist led organisations in Ireland but rather to generate an enquiry into the value of the labour invested in running them.

FOOTFALL was funded by the Arts Council Project Award 2013.

To read the FOOTFALL report go to: 126.ie/footfall-research-report/

North Light Arts Opportunities – Garden Lane

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Queen Bee by Natalie Taylor – NorthLight 2012

North Light Arts are very excited to be able to offer opportunities to artists whose environmental practice is participatory, artist’s who work with the environment and can help us to deliver our exciting new project at Garden Lane.

North Light Arts and East Lothian Arts Service are in the process of developing the John Muir Residency 2016 and events, workshops and projects in connection with the development of a community garden and outdoor environmental arts space at our new Garden Lane project, part of theBacklands Regeneration Project Dunbar.

We are looking for environmental artists who have an interest in the work of North Light Arts; in public art and participatory practice, sustainability, horticulture, food production, recycling and repurposing materials, biodiversity, heritage and community.

The Backlands garden site is located behind Dunbar High Street and is a strip of land off Garden Lane, a name that hints at its heritage. Currently the lane is just a thoroughfare from the High Street to the supermarket and car park but this is a key historical site, the area potentially being on the ground of the gardens of an early monastery for the Trinitarians (Red Friars), which was founded 1240 to 1248; the site still retains small traces of the stone walls of the ‘Monks Walk’. Historically the site is known to have been in continuous cultivation and we aim to restore some of the heritage varieties which would have been grown in the locality as mentioned in various historic records and briefly in John Muir’s autobiography from his childhood years in Dunbar.

We plan to engage the community in the process of researching and developing ideas for this inspiring site and the potential this outdoor environmental arts space offers; perhaps for or shelter, perhaps a project space for participatory workshops, events and public art works. We are collaborating with The Ridge who are developing the community garden as a horticultural training centre and they are currently working on the adjacent site to develop a market garden and a produce market. We also hope to work with as many recycled and repurposed materials as possible working in close connection with Zero Waste Town Dunbar.

We are looking for artists whose environmental practice is participatory, artist’s who work with the environment to deliver workshops and those who work with themes of horticulture, heritage, health and well being, biodiversity and sustainability.

If you are interested in working with North Light Arts please send your CV with Six images of your work and explain how you could work with us to deliver our ambitions for the garden at Garden Lane.

To arrive by 12.00 mid day on Monday 14December 2015
Selected artists will be invited to interview in the New Year.

Gavin Porter : Journey of a Fruit Fly

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Gavin Porter’s practice uses the mediums of drawing and etching to create a visual language exploring the territory between the real and the imagined, the sublime and the absurd. Referencing techniques observed in historical engravings, Porter’s work exploits the linear, monochrome qualities of these mediums to engage with the uncanny nature of natural forms and phenomena. Porter’s most recent creations are brought together at the LSC for Journey of a Fruit Fly which includes etchings, drawings and large-scale graphic compositions.

Further information: leitrimsculpturecentre.ie

Alan Holligan : Liz Waterston, Edinburgh College Residency Artist 2015

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WHO RUN THE WORLD

The candy pink beat that permeates a number of Liz Waterston’s text based video works hypnotically pulse out fluoro lights reminiscent of the flickering neon that underpins midnight strolls through dark places: karaoke evenings where we all become our heroes for a few moments and their words through our mouths make us (the same as) them. An examination of transition and transformation can be seen throughout Waterston’s work, and when considered beyond the first saccharine encounter brings forth, amongst other sensations, a feeling of loss and sadness; feelings that undermine and contradict the melodiousness of the aesthetic.

Liz Waterston is a former Edinburgh College 2015 artist in resident, the works presented are an outcome of her residency.

28 November – 6th December 2015, 11:00 – 18:00
Venue: Basement Gallery I, Summerhall, Associate Exhibition

Martin Craig : Devils in the Making

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18 September 2015–28 February 2016

Exploring Glasgow Museums Contemporary Art collection through connections with Glasgow School of Art, this exhibition includes artists such as Christine Borland, Jim Lambie, Roderick Buchanan, Victoria Morton & Simon Starling.

In 1996 Douglas Gordon became the first Scottish artist to win the prestigious Turner Prize. He was one of an already successful group of graduates from The Glasgow School of Art (GSA), who were exhibiting around the world to critical acclaim.That same year GoMA opened to the public with a collection that did not represent the work of these influential artists. Much criticism was leveled at the city by the artistic community as a result. Twenty years on GoMA regularly exhibits, commissions and collects works by artists based in Glasgow, many of whom trained at GSA. This exhibition showcases some of the works that have been made in the city during the intervening decades.

The Glasgow School of Art plays a significant role in establishing and maintaining Glasgow’s standing as an internationally recognised centre for contemporary art. One of Europe’s foremost art schools, GSA has nurtured and produced many of Scotland’s leading artists and, over the years, Glasgow Museums has had the fortune to add works by some of these artists to its collection, a selection of these works can be seen in this exhibition.

Jackie Jack : Locked in Edinburgh

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‘Locked In Edinburgh’ opened at Summerhall for the 2015 Festival, making it the fifth escape game in the city – but this one is unique! It’s the nly one themed and built around a real room. Discover for yourself the secrets hidden within the old small animal hospital! Are you ready for us to mess with your mind?

LiE needs “lab assistants” to investigate the truth behind the strange noises heard coming from Dr C. Lions office. Could he be experimenting on animals?

You have an hour to work your way around the room, free yourself and anything found captive.

Check LiE out on Facebook or at lockedinedinburgh.com

Anne Stewart : New Art New Nature

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Ulster Museum
10:00 – 17:00, Friday 10 October 2014 – Sunday 10 January 2016

This exhibition, largely drawn from the Ulster Museum collection, looks at the role of nature in the work of Irish and International artists over the past seventy years.

This exhibition, largely drawn from the Ulster Museum collection, looks at the role of nature in the work of Irish and International artists over the past seventy years.

The display begins with the Oceania textiles (1946) made by Matisse at the end of his career, when illness prevented him from painting. The ‘cut-out’ forms are designed to give a sense of the limitless freedom, lightness and space he had experienced when swimming in the South Seas in 1930. Matisse referred to ‘the irrepressibility of nature’ and this theme was taken up by William Scott in The Four Seasons Mural, (1959-62) for Altnagelvin Hospital, in which he translated the cyclical rhythms of the seasons into a highly accomplished abstract composition.

Nature as a potent, even overpowering, force is alluded to in Segura (2010), a video installation by Willie Doherty made in the Murcia region of southern Spain. The exhibition closes with two new acquisitions by Tyrone artist William McKeown (1962-2011). Untitled (2008) (Art Fund Grant 2014) is a luminous, abstract evocation of the sense of joyousness the artist experienced when looking at a light drenched early morning sky. This poetic response and sense of reverie is also present in Waiting for the Corncrake (2008) a series of delicate, atmospheric watercolours presented to the Ulster Museum by the artist’s estate in memory of William McKeown’s important contribution to Irish art.

Kim Mawhinney : Silent Testimony by Colin Davidson

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An exhibition of portrait paintings by Colin Davidson (born 1968), reveals the stories of eighteen people who are connected by their individual experiences of loss through the Troubles – a turbulent 30-year period in Northern Ireland from the late 1960s onwards.

Since 2010, Davidson has become internationally renowned for his series of large-scale portraits of actors, musicians, poets and writers. While painting these familiar faces, he became increasingly preoccupied, not with their celebrity, but more with their status as human beings. This continuing exploration of ‘common humanity’ is the foundation on which Silent Testimony rests.

Until now, the artist, who grew up in Belfast and studied art at the University of Ulster, has not responded overtly to what he witnessed or personally experienced during the Troubles. Silent Testimony is a powerful response which reflects on how the conflict has had, and continues to have, a profound impact on thousands of individuals – the injured, their families, the families of those who died and the wider community.

10:00 – 17:00, Friday 5 June 2015 – Sunday 17 January 2016
Eighteen portrait paintings by Colin Davidson.
Ulster Museum, Belfast

Andrew O’Hagan : The Illuminations

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Edinburgh welcomes back one of Scotland’s most ferociously-talented writers. Andrew O’Hagan’s fifth novel, The Illuminations, weaves two linked stories together: the older woman, Anne Quirk, is a Scottish photographer struggling to keep hold of her memories, the younger man is her grandson Luke, an Afghanistan veteran whose experiences are ones he’d rather forget. Anne and Luke embark on a journey to confront a mystery from Anne’s past. Interviewed by Frances Hider at the Edinburgh International Book Festival.

Summerhall TV at CPH DOX : Copenhagen Documentary Festival

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Summerhall TV journalist Anastasia Kharchenko reports on new movements in independent film distribution. Interviewing a film distributor Manuela Buono (‘A Good American’) and filmmaker Paulo Toledo (‘Waiting for B’) at the Copenhagen Documentary Festival, these industry-insiders explain how best to engage with the changing film industry.

Aaron McCarthy : Small Gate, Infinite Field

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Generator Projects are proud to present Small Gate, Infinite Field; a solo presentation of new work from emerging artist Christopher Macinnes. Small Gate, Infinite Field, a space of concealment and exposure, an immersive generated environment consisting of industrial substations meshed with the persistent growth of vital matter.

A semi-allegorical body of work; an opening of satirical and ironic gestures, utopian and cynical in equal measure, Macinnes has utilised a multi-sensory work incorporating moving image, sound and script to create a paradoxical reflection on our collective consuming being.

14 November – 13 December 2015

For further details: generatorprojects.co.uk/

Anne Stewart : Lavery’s World

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Sir John Lavery is best known as a society portraitist and for a remarkable series of formal portraits of politicians and prelates. This small exhibition looks instead at the private world of Sir John Lavery, and brings together portraits he painted of his wife and muse, Hazel, his daughter Eileen and step-daughter Alice. The exhibition sets the scene for these family portraits by including landscapes of places, such as Tangier in North Africa, which he visited.

Watch our video interview with Anne Stewart the Curator of Fine Art for National Museums Northern Ireland to learn more about this exceptional man and his art.

The Private World of Sir John Lavery (1856 – 1941)
Ulster Museum
10:00 – 17:00 until Sunday 17 January 2016

 

Tony Sheehan : ECM Weekend Festival

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The world’s most prestigious record label ECM arrives in Cork this November to Triskel Christchurch who are proud to stage the inaugural ECM Weekend Festival from Friday 27 until Sunday 29 November.

Four Concerts featuring well known artists including June Tabor, Arve Henriksen, John Potter, Iain Ballamy and Thomas Strønen will be the highlights of a weekend that also includes the screening of ECM movies, a “Banter” session with music Journalist Jim Carroll with special guests, and ECM listening sessions hosted by PLUGD records.

“To work with ECM artists in this way has been a long-held ambition in Triskel,” says Tony Sheehan, Artistic Director of Triskel Arts Centre. “The weekend will bring some of the most beautiful music in an eclectic selection of live concerts staged in the acoustic and visually beautiful surroundings of Christchurch. The Weekend itself will be a chance for fans and those new to the music to immerse themselves in an experience that will also include talks, vinyl record “listening sessions” and related fringe events and concerts, and screenings of ECM movies in a full digital cinema format”.

27 – 29 NOVEMBER 2015 at Triskel Christchurch

 

Jacqueline O’Hagan : C.S. Lewis Festival

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The third C.S. Lewis Festival, which takes place from Thursday 19th – Sunday 22nd November 2015 throughout Belfast, marks the 52nd anniversary of the death of the renowned author, theologian, academic and creator of the incredible Chronicles of Narnia series.

Clive Staples Lewis was born in Belfast in 1898. The C.S. Lewis Festival will recognise and celebrate both his life and his legacy to the world. Across 4 days of Lewis-related events will be reflections on the cultural significance of Lewis’ rich legacy, the impact he had on Belfast, and the strong influence his native city had on his vast body of work.

For further information go to eastsidearts.net/event/cs-lewis-festival-2015

 

Sarah Grainger-Jones: 183 More Sleeps

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The Koestler Scotland Exhibition, Selected by artist Ruth Ewan
7 – 29 November, 2015, 11:00 –18:00

183 More Sleeps is an exhibition of artwork from prisons, secure hospitals, secure children’s homes, immigration detention centres and community justice services in Scotland. Selected by artist Ruth Ewan from entries to the 2015 Koestler Awards – a charitable scheme which has been rewarding artistic achievement in the penal and secure sectors for over 50 years.The exhibition features an extensive range of artwork including painting, sculpture, needlecraft, nail art, printmaking, woodcraft, audio, animation and writing.
Supported by the National Lottery through Creative Scotland, with additional support from the Robertson Trust and the Souter Charitable Trust.

For further information – email info@koestlertrust.org.uk or call 020 8740 0333
Summerhall Associate Exhibitions Programme

Catherine Thompson and Deirdre McCrory : Near and Far

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Two printmakers from Seacourt Print Workshop, Catherine and Deirdre were students together at Belfast College of Art. With a background in printed textiles, they share an appreciation for design, pattern and colour. Catherine, a printmaker and painter, and Deirdre, a printmaker and enameller, are passionate about developing their work and exploring image–making beyond the purely representational.

Taking inspiration from nature and the surrounding environment, they have exhibited regularly in both solo and group shows, nationally and internationally.

Thu 29 Oct – Sat 21 Nov, Island Arts Centre, Lisburn

Doug Johnstone : The Jump

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Ricky Brown interviews Doug Johnstone about his crime novels, writing process and the importance of setting at the Edinburgh Book Festival.

Once a nuclear physicist, Doug Johnstone is now a successful writer and freelance journalist (and blogger) based in Edinburgh. In 2006, the Sunday Herald hailed him as one of Scotland’s finest new talents. Tombstoning (2006) was followed by The Ossians (2009) – two thrilling and thoughtful novels. Ian Rankin said of The Ossians: ‘[Johnstone’s] descriptions of ‘peripheral Scotland’ were telling and accurate … The book kept me guessing and I was genuinely sorry when there was nothing left to read’. The Ossians features one of Johnstone’s biggest passions – music. He’s a singer, songwriter and instrumentalist in his band Northern Alliance, which has become something of a cult hit.

Doug Johnstone’s new novel, The Jump, features a mother trying to seek redemption in the wake of her son’s suicide.

Rob Doyle : Here Are the Young Men

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Here Are the Young Men depicts life for four young men on the savage streets of Dublin.
Rob Doyle was born in Dublin, and holds a first-class honours degree in Philosophy and an MPhil in Psychoanalysis from Trinity College Dublin. For the past several years he has lived in Asia, South America, the US, Sicily, and London, and he currently lives in Paris.

Doyle turns his attention back to Ireland, and his hometown of Dublin, in his debut novel, Here Are the Young Men. Matthew, Rez, Cocker and Kearney face the void of their post-school lives, and spend their first summer of freedom in a savage apprenticeship on the streets of Dublin. Roaming aimlessly through the city, fuelled by drugs and dark fantasies, the teenagers spiral into self-destruction, fleeing a reality they despise.

Here Are the Young Men brilliantly captures the anxieties and the fears of teenage years and is an ambitious portrait of a jilted generation. Fellow Irish novelist John Boyne, author of The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, described the book as ‘a powerful, passionate and electrifying novel’.