Amharcealaín - Visual Art
BALLINA ARTS CENTRE
Ballina Civic Offices, Arran Place, Ballina, Co. Mayo.
T: 096 73593
E: ballinaartscentre@gmail.net
W: www.ballinaartscentre.com
Parallel with Nature Exhibition
April 7th – 30th
This group show features five painters, all of whom explore landscape painting in an abstract-expressionist style.
Derek Fitzpatrick uses the figure and the landscape as the ultimate symbols to project paint/material upon. They represent the most fundamental and basic struggles 'to be' and it is this moment in time that he aims to capture.
His interest lies in expressing basic human emotion- tragedy, ecstasy, doom, and an attempt to achieve insight into the essence of humanity or the human condition.
Angie Grimes work owes its origins to a deep historical affinity for the sea and her paintings explore the rich visual imagery of the ocean. This series of paintings, entitled Drift, is inspired by the ever changing atmosphere and mood of the ocean.
The work exploits the rich quality of the paint itself to convey an instinctive emotion with each image developing its own reality to communicate a distinct visual statement to the viewer.
Brigid McGuire describes her work as a response to her surroundings. For the past ten years, her work has mainly been seascapes – studies in oils, watercolours, photography, and drawing, as well as text-based works. She is fascinated by texture, atmosphere and the manipulation of materials.
Mary Lavelle-Burke graduated with a degree in Fine Art and Design from GMIT in 2007 and she lives and works on Achill Island. She has participated in several group exhibitions since 2006, throughout Ireland and abroad. The atmosphere and environment of Achill Island, and the everyday life spent observing and experiencing the landscape and the sea, specifically the shoreline, rocks and pools, has inspired the body of work seen here.
Jenny Fox’s current body of work draws from vast empty spaces which were once inhabited but now lie dilapidated.
The main catalyst for these pieces is the sense of abandonement of the structures and objects that have been discarded and the feeling that they’ve been bypassed, which is heightened by the empty expanses that surrounds them.
LINENHALL ARTS CENTRE
Linenhall St, Castlebar, Mayo.
T: 094 9023733
E: linenhall@anu.ie
W: www.thelinenhall.com
Friday 1st - Saturday 30th April
Ross Stewart - Steel Bridges, Bog Bodies
An exhibition of new mixed media works on canvas and paper, inspired by the artist’s recent experiences in Oregon fused with a deep rooted love of Irish landscape and culture. This new work finds the repetitive geometric patterns of manmade concrete and steel structures of the modern city submerged under layers of organic texture and mark-making, exploring “how the temporary power of modern structure can and will be easily lost in Nature and forgotten in our memory”.
Ross Stewart is an Irish artist working in painting, illustration and animation, notably conceptual design and art direction. He was Art Director on the award-winning film The Secret of Kells, recently nominated for an Academy Award. His personal artwork is based on organically developed landscape studies, focusing on atmosphere and mood rather than representational form. His highly textured mixed media paintings suggest wide expanses of bog or moor, solitary trees or boulders with vivid, intricate details submerged under glazes of earthy colours. Ross Stewart has exhibited across Ireland and the UK over the last 11 years and his work is held in public and private collections internationally.
The Linenhall Arts Centre acknowledges the financial support of the Arts Council in making this exhibition possible.
Adm. free
Official opening on Friday 1st April at 7.30pm. All welcome.
CUSTOM HOUSE STUDIOS
The Quay, Westport, Mayo
T: 098-28735.
E: customhouse@eircom.net
W: www.customhousestudios.ie
Dorothee Kolle “Voices and Reflections”
April 7th – April 30th
During the last three years Dorothee Kolle’s work has mostly concentrating on drawing. Visual and personal experiences and memories resonate in the work.
There is a great variety in the use of media and motif and the consistency in these drawings lie in the recurrent motives.
In this exhibition the work is informed by Dorothee’s earlier sculptural practice in so far as these pieces show a great solidity in colour and monotone.
Spontaneous creation and contemplation and analytical reflection both go hand in hand during the process.
Dorothee is originally from Germany but now lives and works in Manorhamilton. In 2005 she did the Post Graduate in Fine Art in Sligo.
Since 1991 she has exhibited in numerous group shows such as IONTAS and the RHA and has had two Solo exhibitions.
She was awarded in 2005 artist in residence for the Tyrone Guthrie Centre and in 2006 for the Leitrim Sculpture Centre.