JULY/ AUGUST

21 Jul 2010 – 31 Aug 2010

Summer workshops, 2009

Venue: Highlanes Gallery

Admission: EUR30.00

Programme for Children:

Join artists and facilitators in exploring the artwork and ideas in the Drogheda Municipal Art Collection and the current temporary exhibition The Marienbad Palace this summer for 3 unique workshop sessions, each over three days.

The 3-day workshop blocks are age appropriate for 5-8yr olds (W1), 9-12yr olds (W2) and teenagers 13-17yrs (W3) and delivered on Wednesday, Thursday and Fridays from 10.45am-1.00pm.
Cost: The blocks are €30 for the three days, with materials included. There is a 10% reduction for Friends of Highlanes Gallery, and for 2 or more children from one family.

5-8 years Week 1: W21, T22, F23 July, 10.45am-1.00pm (each day)
Facilitator and educator Lynn McGrane looks The Marienbad Palace with the children and considers Abstraction through shape and colour; discusses dreams and reality in a session-Mind Mobiles and facilitates and makes a memory box with the participants.

9-12 years Week 2: W28, T29, F30 July, 10.45am-1.00pm (each day)
Join artist Raphael Hynes exploring Drogheda through the Ages in considering the Drogheda Municipal Art Collection, making individual paintings and constructing a 3D model of Medieval Drogheda as a group.

13-17 years Week 3: W4, T5, F6 August, 10.45am-1.00pm (each day)
Artists Declan Kelly and Els Borghart considers perception and ideas of reality through the exhibition The Marienbad Palace. The group will consider and explores ideas of the natural world through the eyes of other creatures large and small using a broad range of media.

Programme for Adults:
Workshop: Tuesday 27 July, 11.00am-1.00pm
Drogheda as a theme
Join artist Raphael Hynes to consider the current exhibition selected from the Drogheda Municipal Art Collection that focuses on Drogheda through three centuries. Participants are invited to bring in sketches, photographs or material relating to place, be it Drogheda or their home place.
Cost: €15, 10% concessions apply for Friends of Highlanes Gallery, materials supplied

Gallery Talk: Tuesday 10 August, 1.00pm
Drogheda Municipal Art Collection: Drogheda
Join Brendan Matthews, Community Historian and Archivist at Millmount Museum, author of a History of Stamullen, the Burning of Balbriggan by the Black & Tans in 1920 and Tower of Strength; A History of the Millmount Museum Complex in Drogheda.
Cost: Free, donation of €2 encouraged

Workshop: Tuesday 3 August, 11.00am-1.00pm
An exploration of the world around us through light and shadow
Declan Kelly and Els Borghart consider the current exhibition The Marienbad Palace using some blind drawing exercises, demonstrating some drawing techniques, and looking at tone and shadow.
Cost: €15, 10% concessions apply for Friends of Highlanes Gallery, materials supplied

Heritage Week
Gallery Reading: Thursday 26 August, 12.00pm
Artist Amanda Coogan reads the short story The Enormous Space by J.G. Ballard. The story is the starting point of the current exhibition The Marienbad Palace, curated by Jacqui McIntosh.
Cost: Free, donation of €2 encouraged

Gallery Talk: Thursday 26 August, 1.30pm
Historian Seán Collins discusses the current exhibition selected from the Drogheda Municipal Art Collection featuring the mace and sword of Drogheda
Cost: Free, donation of €2 encouraged
Booking is advised; telephone Siobhan Murphy and Hilary Kelly on 041 – 9803311, places limited for all workshops.

Gallery Opening hours are:
Monday- Saturday 10.30am-5.00pm, closed Sunday and Bank Holidays
Book a free tour for groups or individuals, or drop in and ask the gallery invigilators.
And throughout the summer…
Thursdays at 11.00am: Tours for children and babies (with adults) €5, children free (complimentary coffee and scone afterwards, lemonade for children)
Fridays at 11.00am: Tours for adults €5, (complimentary coffee and scone afterwards)

Highlanes Gallery has onsite partners of Andersons Cafe and Louth Craftmark.
Highlanes Municipal Gallery, Laurence Street, Drogheda, Co. Louth T. + 353 (0) 41 9803311, W. www.highlanes.ie

May bank holiday weekend – Friday 30th April to 3rd May 2010.

The Drogheda Arts Festival has announced another exciting and varied programme for the 2010 Festival kicking off on Friday 30th April.   The festival, which runs over the May bank holiday weekend, will host an exciting lineup of local, national, and international artists including the first visit to Ireland by acclaimed Russian composer Sofia Gubaidulina, a world premiere of a work by Conall Quinn from Upstate Live, music, visual art, family fun and outdoor celebration, and lots more.  There is only one place to be this bank holiday weekend – Drogheda!

Friday 30th April will see the official opening of the Festival in the Highlanes Gallery.  The Marienbad Palace, a visual art exhibition curated by Jacqui McIntosh is divided between two venues in the town, the Droichead Arts Centre and the Highlanes Municipal Art Gallery.  ’The Marienbad Palace’ brings together works by Laura Buckley, Diana Copperwhite, Jorge De La Garza, Alicja Kwade, Haroon Mirza and Ian Monroe. The exhibition, which includes collage, painting, sculpture, installation and video, takes its title from JG Ballard’s 1989 short story ‘The Enormous Space’ and Alain Resnais’ seminal 1961 film ‘Last Year in Marienbad’.  The exhibition explores ideas of reality in a world where virtual reality is always competing with accepted notions of time and space.  ‘The Marienbad Palace’ has been commissioned exclusively for Drogheda Arts Festival.

Over the past few years, Louth Contemporary Music Society has brought world renowned composers to Louth, including Arvo Pärt, Philip Glass, Terry Riley and Valentyn Silvestrov.  This year they are delighted to welcome Russian composer Sofia Gubaidulina to the town as part of the Drogheda Arts Festival. One of the world’s greatest composers, Sofia Gubaidulina will visit Ireland for the first time to attend a concert celebrating her work. Entitled The Fire and the Rose: the Music of Sofia Gubaidulina, the concert which will take place in St Peter’s Church, Drogheda on May 1st, and will be preceded earlier in the day by the showing of a film on her life and work in the Droichead Arts Centre

Also Saturday 1st May West Street running through the heart of the town will become ‘West Street Wonderland’ for one day only!  The Festival aims to revitalize for this day some of the empty spaces on the street, transforming Drogheda’s main artery with music, outdoor performances, and workshops.  The emphasis will be on participation and fun, with opportunities for all ages to engage with artists and theatre practitioners.

The other side of the river on Saturday and Sunday will see the Drogheda Spring Food Festival, located on the Waterfront, Scotch Hall.  Experience this two-day mini-festival of food offering the tastes and delights of the local food connoisseurs, a farmers market, craft butchers, restaurant tastings, ‘grow your own’ demonstrations and wine seminars.

Theatre and performance also feature strongly in this year’s programme.

-          UPSTATE LIVE presents the world premiere of  THE ONES WHO KILL SHOOTING STARS A new play by Conall Quinn (winner of the Stewart Parker award), directed by Paul Hayes.    This is a highly original entertaining and surreal tale of love and death set on a County Louth beach during World War II.   Absurd, bleak and hilarious in equal measure, THE ONES WHO KILL SHOOTING STARS is commissioned by Drogheda Arts Festival, and will undertake a short national tour after its festival performances.

-          A double bill from award-winning dancer/choreographer Claire Cunningham showcasing her exceptional dance technique and impressive power. ME (Mobile/Evolution) is a show woven from humorous stories; about doctors and dancing, bikes and ballet; all threaded together and balanced upon, hanging from, spinning on and swinging on crutches.   ***** The Herald

-          Cirque de Légume will bring their award winning new show The Cirque de Légume to Drogheda. Marvel at the Veget- animal! Enthrall at the Leek of Power! Fantasize over the Onion Strip Tease! WINNER Bewley’s Theatre Award – Dublin Fringe Festival 2009 and NOMINATED Best Male Performer – Dublin Fringe Festival 2009.

-          Community involvement is a key element of the Festival and this year Droichead Youth Theatre will bring the audience on a special journey through Secondary School in a site specific theatre piece in St Mary’s Diocesan School.

The Festival once again offers a very strong music element. As well as the much anticipated visit by Sofia Gubaidulina, the other music elements will include:

-          Acclaimed South Korean born pianist YOUNG-CHOON PARK performing on the magnificent grand piano in St Peter’s Church Drogheda.  Young- Choon Park will be introduced by sports commentator and Lyric fm presenter, George Hamilton. “…individually refreshing, while demonstrating real passion and style as well as outstanding technical proficiency…”   Sunday Times

-          Music Changes Lives – the young musicians from the acclaimed RTE factual series come to Drogheda to perform at the Barbican Centre.  Accompanies by other young music ensembles, this concert promises to be an opportunity to hear great music, and act as an inspiration for all children to explore their musical talents

-          Dervish, who will perform for one night only on Monday 3rd May as part of their 21st anniversary celebrations.

-          Grammy Award-nominated musical duo, Zero 7 (also nominated for Best British newcomer at the 2002 Brit Awards) with support by Andrew K (External Sounds) & Rob Mullen (External Sounds).

-          DJ Ashley Beedle with support by Keith Kelly (External Sounds).

Other events will include a poetry reading and conversation with Poet Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin and the much loved traditional day at Millmount which will this year be held on Sunday 2nd May, with music, craft, Celtic warriors, the firing of cannons, boat-building, and the rapidly-developing Drogheda Fringe Festival.

Full programme details can be found at:  www.droghedaartsfestival.ie

The Drogheda Arts Festival is supported by: Louth Local Authorities, The Arts Council, and Fáilte Ireland.

The Fire and the Rose: the Music of Sofia Gubaidulina is presented by Louth Contemporary Music Society (LCMS) in association with Drogheda Arts Festival. The Fire and the Rose: the Music of Sofia Gubaidulina is funded by The Arts Council / An Chomhairle Ealaíon and financially supported by the Drogheda Arts Festival with supported by Louth County Council .

Press information:

Gerry Lundberg Public Relations    Tel:  01 679 8476 / 086 259 1070 / 087 259 1070    glundpr@iol.ie

View the Programme here.

Children’s Holiday Workshops

Led by photographer Eric O’Neil and Hilary Kelly, Highlanes Gallery considering the exhibition Ten Miles Round

Wednesday 7 April, 2010

Workshop 1: 5-8yr olds 11.00am-12.30pm
Workshop 2: 9-12yr olds 2.00pm-3.30pm

• Children are asked to bring an object or toy that is special to them, one that they might like to be photographed during the workshop

Cost: €5 per child and a reduction for more children in one family

This workshop will be documented by Highlanes Gallery for the archive, parents will be asked to sign a consent form on arrival.

To Book: Telephone Siobhan Murphy and Hilary Kelly on 041 9803311 or email Regina Somerville on reception@highlanes.ie

The exhibition Ten Miles Round by Jackie Nickerson continues until April 21, 2010

Families and children’s groups are welcome to visit the exhibition during the gallery opening hours: Monday-Saturday 10.30am-5.00pm, closed Sundays

Highlanes Municipal Art Gallery, Laurence Street, Drogheda, Co. Louth W. www.highlanes.ie; T. + 353 (0)41 9803311 E. info@highlanes.ie

Highlanes Gallery will now open Monday to Saturday 10.30am-5.00pm, and will remain closed on Sundays.
It will be open on key Sundays and Bank Holidays throughout 2010 including St. Patrick’s Day (Wednesday 17 March) and the May Bank Holiday Weekend (Saturday 1, Sunday 2 and Bank Holiday Monday 3 May ) to coincide with the Annual Drogheda Arts Festival, and both the October Bank Holiday Weekend (23, 24, 25 October) and the Annual Drogheda Traditional Music Festival Weekend in late November (27, 28).
Highlanes Gallery and its onsite partners Andersons Cafe and Louth Craftmark will make every effort that ongoing printed material and other communication reflects this information and apologises for any inconvenience to any visitors.
Please contact Highlanes Gallery, reception for further queries on +353 (0)41 9803311.

AIDAN DUNNE

Tue, Jan 05, 2010

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/features/2010/0105/1224261662900.html

Drogheda’s Nano Reid and Belfast-born Gerard Dillon became close friends and often painted together – and while you are unlikely to mistake the work of one for the other, there is common ground between them, as a new exhibition shows

AN EXHIBITION at the Highlanes Gallery in Drogheda, Co Louth, explores the relationship between Nano Reid and Gerard Dillon, each of whom played an important role in the development of modernism in 20th-century Irish art. Did their personal friendship translate into shared artistic aims and approaches? While it is displayed side by side, you are unlikely to mistake the work of one for the other, but at the same time it’s no surprise that there might be common ground: they were on close terms for several decades, had shared interests, and often spent time and painted together.

Reid is now indelibly associated with Drogheda, though during her lifetime it pained her that her birthplace did not accord her the artistic recognition she deserved. In fact, the local populace, she complained, had little interest in painting at all. She had harsh and not entirely unfounded views on the shortcomings of the municipality, and bemoaned what she saw as the destruction of the town’s historical fabric. She was born in 1900 – she did not like to be pinned down about her birth date, which is often given as 1905 or later, but, in his carefully detailed biography of her, Declan Mallon plumps for 1900.

HER FATHER WAS a publican, and the family was comfortably off. In 1921 she became a student at the Dublin Metropolitan School of Art, at first commuting daily but then basing herself in the capital. Fairly small in stature, she comes across, in various descriptions, as being shy and reticent but also feisty, with forthright views and a waspish tongue. She went on to study in Paris and then, dissatisfied, at the Central School of Art and the Chelsea Polytechnic in London. She settled back in Dublin, and at one stage the flat she shared with a friend became the centre for an odd, bohemian group of younger figures, including Pearse Hutchinson. Her plan to become a portrait painter foundered, not for lack of ability but through temperamental unsuitability. Flattery and diplomacy were not her strong points. She nonetheless established herself as a highly regarded painter on the progressive side of Irish art.

Her eventual artistic voice is distinctive and makes no attempt to be ingratiating. She draws on post-impressionism and expressionism, but doesn’t hesitate to bring in aspects of cubism at will, and she has her own subdued – at times murky – palette. Apparently a visit to a show by Belgian painter Marie Howet in 1937 encouraged her own boldly linear, highly subjective mode of representation. The dreamy, indeterminate space that is characteristic of many of both her and Dillon’s paintings strongly recalls Marc Chagall.

DILLON, BORN IN Belfast in 1917, was the son of a postman. He apprenticed as a painter and decorator, and pursued that occupation (and later on others in the building trade) in London for many years throughout his working life. He was a restlessly inventive and industrious artist. While he was on a visit to Belfast in 1939, the outbreak of war prevented his return to London, and he headed south to Dublin instead, one of a number of Northern Irish artists to do so. At some stage he met Reid, and thus began a long, mutually beneficial association.

Hilda van Stockum, a fellow student of hers at the Metropolitan School, said that it was her feeling that Reid would like to be more attractive to men than seemed to be the case. She was certainly wary of men, and warned van Stockum against them. Was she initially attracted to Dillon, and did that attraction become, in time, friendship? Or was he a safe prospect as a male friend because he was gay? In any case, their friendship thrived.

To a greater extent than Reid, Dillon worked his way through a gamut of stylistic and technical possibilities in his paintings, very much in the manner of an autodidact. As with Reid, he didn’t have great natural facility as a draughtsman or a painter, but there is a tremendous vitality to his work, and a continual openness to possibility that makes it engaging. He drew equally, for example, on the pictorial method of the ancient high-cross carvers and the Parisian avant-garde. He was inclined towards folksy, even sentimental narratives, which can make some of his paintings seem either especially accessible or unduly cloying, depending on your point of view.

Like many Irish artists, including Reid, he was particularly drawn to the west of Ireland, and around 1950 managed to spend a year in Connemara, based in a cottage on Inishlacken, close to Roundstone.

Reid went to stay with him, as she did on other occasions, and he with her. Dillon valued the west of Ireland rather nostalgically, as a bastion of folk traditions as yet spared the creeping uniformity of modernisation. In his work, the landscape is always a backdrop to the lives, customs and traditions of the people, not an end in itself.

Reid drew a huge fund of inspiration from her birthplace and its surroundings, notably the Boyne Valley which, as Seán O’Faoláin put it, “silently murmurs ancestral memories”. A series of spare, linear ink drawings of sites along the valley, accompanied by a text by Elizabeth Hickey, was published as a book, I Send My Love Along the Boyne, in 1966. The style of the drawings, and indeed Reid’s paintings, echoes the linear patterning of Celtic and early Christian art. Judging by her paintings, she liked the dense, jumbled textures generated in the landscape by the designs and accidents of history, all mingled with the unruly present, and generations of stories told about places and people. She wasn’t so keen on digging up and reorganising the past, and said she’d given up painting the Boyne Valley after the excavations of the 1960s. Dillon went to stay with her in Drogheda and, with one of her sisters as chauffeur, they’d make painting excursions into the countryside.

DILLON DIED AT a relatively young age in 1971, having settled in Dublin in 1968. Living back in Drogheda from the early 1960s, Reid survived him by 10 years, but she was increasingly prone to arthritis and other ailments as time went by. The works in the Highlanes exhibition, curated by Dr Riann Coulter, offer an exposition of their decades-long artistic conversation. Each acknowledged the other’s influence, and the show is a perfect way of tracing the surprisingly subtle workings of that influence, and also of placing each within the broader historical context. Reid would surely have been proud of it, and no doubt gratified to be acknowledged so conspicuously in her hometown.

© 2010 The Irish Times

Sunday 3 January, 2.30pm- 4.00pm
€3.00 for children
parentsand guardians are welcome to support and participate
This gallery and Studio – based workshop is led by Liam O’Broin using the Nano Reid and Gerard Dillon exhibition as a starting point.

Tuesday 5 January, 2.00pm- 3.30pm
€5.00for children (5 – 8yrs) Bookings advisable parents and guardians are welcome to support and participate
Join artist Liam O’Broin who will discuss the work of Nano Reid and Gerard Dillon with family groups, discussing ideas and themes in the exhibition. Families are then invited to use dry materials and paper(supplied) making work in response to the exhibition.

Wednesday 6 January, 11.00am- 12.00pm
€3.00 for children ( free with admission to exhibition with adults)
Thisgallery and Studio – based workshop is led by Liam O’Broin using the Nano Reid and Gerard Dillon exhibition as a starting point.

Wednesday 6 January, 2.00pm- 4.30pm
€5.00 for children (9 – 13yrs) Bookings advisable
Page 1 of 2
AdultWorkshop
This adult workshop is led by Liam O’Broin. Liam will bring the group around the Nano Reid and Gerard Dillon exhibition, focusing on the tapestry work by Gerard Dillon Hands Across the Border.

Friday 8 January, 11.00am- 1.00pm
€10.00 per adult (places limited) Bookings advisable
Exhibition Sponsors: the Arts Council, lJons Engineering, Trousdale Baking Company, FBD Insurance, Keal Ryan Properties and Whyte’s Art Auctionners and Valuers
Admission: €4.00
Concessions: €3.00 (concessions-friends/patrons/benefactors,older people, unwaged etc)
Free for children (under18’s)
There is a €2.00 admission for under 18’s visiting as part of a group or special programme
For further informationand booking contactSiobhan Murphy and Hilary Kelly at Highlanes Gallery on 041-9803311 or Regina Sommerville at info@highlanes.ie
Opening Hours: Monday-Saturday 10.30am-5.00pm Sunday and Bank Holidays 12.00-5.00pm

A Very Happy Christmas to you all, from all the staff here at Louth Craftmark

As a Christmas gift and to offer even better value for money

to you as valued customers,

we are cutting our VAT rate for the whole month of December

and are happy to offer

9% discount

off the marked price of all our craft products in store

Louth Craftmark at Highlanes: supporting & showcasing the work of

talented Louth designers and makers

(Discount will be taken at the cash register, excludes some non craft items including some cards and books)

Admission: €4.00 Concessions: €3.00 (concessions-friends/patrons/benefactors, older people, unwaged etc) Free for children (under 18’s)
There is a €2.00 admission for under 18’s visiting as part of a group or special programme.

For further information and booking contact Siobhan Murphy and Hilary Kelly at Highlanes Gallery on 041-9803311 or Regina Sommerville at info@highlanes.ie Directions and maps can be found on the gallery website www.highlanes.ie
Opening Hours:
Monday-Saturday 10.30am-5.00pm
Sunday and Bank Holidays 12.00-5.00pm
Highlanes Gallery, Laurence Street, Drogheda, Co. Louth, Irela