Louth Craftmark

Patricia Murphy was an internationally exhibited artist from Blackrock, County Louth, whose work included paintings, public art, installations and contemporary rugs. She passed away in 2018. Patricia was an influential member of Louth Craftmark. This exhibition is inspired by her vibrant and exhilarating artwork.
“My work is about energy as expressed through the idea of light, weather and elemental things”

Since the mid 1980s an important tendency in art by Irish women has been to situate itself clearly in relation to the significant changes in the politics of the body in Ireland that began to take place during that decade, culminating in the recent upsurge of both activism and artwork in relation to the Campaign to Repeal the Eighth Amendment. The revitalisation of feminism during the 1980s in response to the repressive attitudes of church and state also resulted in the emergence of a new generation of Irish women artists whose work was explicitly focused around the politics of the Irish female body.

An exhibition that explicitly focuses on tracking this ongoing conjunction of art and feminism in Ireland is long overdue, and in this sense Elliptical Affinities builds on and acknowledges precedents such as But Still Like Dust I’ll Rise curated by Vivienne Dick at Galway Arts Centre (2018) and the enmeshing of women’s history, temporality, embodiment and affect in Jesse Jones’ Tremble Tremble. 

Rather than a straightforward linear chronology Elliptical Affinities proposes something closer to the ‘elliptical traverse’ of Catherine de Zegher’s influential feminist exhibition Inside the Visible, exploring new genealogies of Irish women’s art indexed to the political. 

Central to this is the notion of femmage to investigate temporal relationships of affinity and influence across generations of women artists, as in Amanda Coogan’s performance Snails: after Alice Maher (2010) which will be restaged in its entirety at the opening at Highlanes Gallery.

The exhibition will consist of loans from both public and private collections, and artist’s studios, including Pauline Cummins’s Inis t’Óirr, Alice Maher’s The Expulsion, Chant Down Greenham by Alanna O’Kelly, and Mr & Mrs. Holy Joe by Dorothy Cross; works remade especially for the exhibition like Louise Walsh Outlaws / Inlaws (first shown at In a State, Kilmainham Gaol, 1991), and more recent work by Breda Lynch, Sarah Browne and Rachel Fallon amongst others.

Elliptical Affinities opens at Highlanes Gallery in Drogheda Saturday 16th November 2019 until 25th January 2020. There will be a closing Symposium in Drogheda on Friday 17th January at Droichead Arts Centre. 6Skin by Aideen Barry and Alice Maher will be screened during the exhibition in the Arc Cinema Drogheda. 

The exhibition is presented with Limerick City Gallery Of Art where it will tour to, opening on Thursday 6th February, continuing until 22nd March, 2020

Elliptical Affinities is curated by Dr Fionna Barber and Aoife Ruane.

A full colour publication accompanies the exhibition with contributions from Gill Perry, Sarah Kelleher, Fionna Barber, and Ailbhe Smyth, and designed by Neil Gordon, 256Media

The exhibition is produced by Aoife Ruane and Stephen Hodgins. The Exhibition is funded by Arts Council Ireland and Manchester Metropolitian University

This new body of work by Drogheda artist Vivienne Byrne seeks to navigate the rhythms and tempos of time unfolding. Her interest in the transitory experience, connection to the breath and impact of time on the perceptions of mortality, has led her to explore methods of presenting captured moments as visual music.

As part of a continuous quest to understand invisible forces, this work presents a series of mixed media installations, incorporating collaged fragments of video footage, projections and traditional drawing techniques. Inspired by the natural environment, the work is ongoing and unfolding.

More information here

Preview reception: Thursday 21st November at 7pm

Louth County Council

Curated by Claire Halpin.
An opportunity to view a selection of artworks from your county collection, which have been donated to, or purchased by Louth County Council, to support artists creating wo& rk. This exhibition will draw new connections and links in form, media and concept across the diverse range of works in the collection, while giving viewers an opportunity to make their own connections and responses and to revisit familiar artworks.

More info here