Thursday, December 23, 2010

Christmas Greeting

Thank you all for your support during 2010 and wishing you a Happy Christmas & a Creative 2011

from Kathryn, Crissie, Dara, Trudi






The Gallery is open:  29th, 30th and 31st of December from 12 - 4 pm
                                 4th, 5th and 6th of January from 12 - 4 pm

The Gallery is closed:  24th, 25th, 26th, 27th, 28th of December
                                   1st, 2nd and 3rd of January

Wednesday, December 1, 2010

OPENING OF THE CHRISTMAS SHOW

We are delighted that Mayor Christy Curtin opened our Christmas Show "has been + is going" and "Trasna" . It was a great evening  and we had a very successful auction.We sold 50 pieces from the 200 original postcard-sized works by established artists.
The exhibition runs until the 6th January and these affordable works, now € 40 each, make original Christmas presents. Works sold can be taken away and they will be replaced by new ones.




                                                                                              

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

'has been + is going'



Exhibition will be opened by Mayor Christy Curtin,
on Friday 26th November @ 7pm
TrasnaAUCTION begins at 8pm


‘has been + is going’ features an astonishingly diverse range of work that ‘has been’ exhibited or ‘is going’ to be exhibited in the near future. Artists were selected for the high standard of their work and the show captures a variety of styles, materials and ways of working. Alongside individual artists’ works are collaborative projects such as Sitemeetings, Collection of Minds and Aughty Public Art Projects.

Artists featured are Jackie Askew, Fiona O’Dwyer (in collaboration with Paddy and Jimin Dooley), Sinead O’Connell, Vicky Lennie, Sarah Fuller, Fiona Woods, Trudi van der Elsen, Nicola Henley, Sitemeetings (Alexandra Boettcher, Maeve Collins, Maria Kerin), David O’Rourke, Ilsa Thielan, Martina Cleary, Desmond McLoughlin, Mairin Kelly, Fiona Woods, Christy McNamara, Dyan Smith, Aoife McGovern and Aughty Public Art Projects (curated by Dr. Aine Phillips with artists Marie Connole, Emma Houlihan and Tom Flanagan).
Alongside these works the Courthouse will host a selection of artist’s paper projects; catalogues, artist’s books and zines.

Trasna is an exhibition of postcard-sized works by well-known artists run in conjunction with the Christmas show. This is a first for the Courthouse Gallery who have been delighted with the response from national and international artists.
 In celebration of this unique exhibition all works will be at a reserve price of 40 euros. This is a wonderful opportunity for locals to purchase original artworks as gifts for loved ones in the upcoming festive season
To encourage all of the communities of North Clare to share in this fun event there will be a wine reception and a humourous Auction to be enjoyed on the opening night Friday  26th November. Members of the public are invited to come early and place bids on their favourite pieces before the auction begins at 8pm.

The Courthouse Gallery welcomes you to these exciting events which celebrates artists’ work in the community of Ennistymon and beyond.

'Trasna' the auction

  

  ‘Trasna’ exhibition and auction of postcard-sized work

  • This collection of almost 200 postcards-sized works from national + international artists will be auctioned by Chris Wallis and Sarah Fuller on the opening night at 8 pm.
  • There is a reserve price of €40 on each work.
  • This is a silent auction, meaning artists are anonymous until after works are purchased.
  • To place a bid : please use stickers provided to indicate which piece you are interested in bidding on.
  • Auction starts at 8 pm, and the highest bidder can take their purchased work on the night. 
  • List of participating artists : Emma Houlihan, Cora Griffin, Cynthia Sinnott, Will O’Kane, Madeline Smith, Jackie Askew, Leslie Wieltschnig, Valerie O’Driscoll, Mimie White, Frank Golden, Patricia Tuite, Pauline Keena, Carmel O’Driscoll, Tara Barone, Sarah Stevens, Margaret Duffy, Fiona O’Dwyer, Desmond McLoughlin, Ann Vaughan, Ben Smith, Kate Hodman, Betty Gannon, Katja Wittmer, Joe Ryan, James Slevin, Judy O’Sullivan, Finola Graham, Achim Riffelwood, Trudi van der Elsen, Liz Moloney, Mary Hoey-Dietz, Barbara Damen, Koos van der Elsen, Maeve Collins, Alexandra Boettcher, Ilsa Thielan, Caitriona Sheedy, Vicky Lennie, Hilary Gilmore, Thomas Prendergast, Natalie El Baba, Madeleine Lara Smith, Mimi Kern, Charles Henihan, Mary McMahon, Ian Wieczorek, Orla Campbell, Gabrielle Cap, Caireann Browne, Carol Kennedy, Fiona Calnan, Joyce Shee, Josephine Quigley, Jean Duffy, Mary Fahy, Emma Barone, Sadie Cramer, Dorothy Ledwith, Tessa O’Connor, Marianne Slevin-Potterton, Dyan Smith, Corinna Schroeder-v.Frihling, Sinead O’Connell, Marje O’Brien, Nicola Henley, Marie Connole, Diana Reid.

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Seeing and Dreaming


DOG AND STRING THEATRE

SEEING AND DREAMING
in the Gallery 
Saturday November 13th @ 8pm

Two visual theatre portraits telling the intricate stories of two lives.

‘Astonishingly insightful, sensitive piece. I think, as it exists, is near perfection – a dance between performers. It is both complete and complex.’

THE SHOW IS SUITABLE FOR ADULTS AND CHILDREN AGED 10 AND OVER

Seeing and Dreaming is a new piece of visual theatre that tells the intricate stories of two lives. Visual artist and puppeteer Sarah Fuller and performer Vanessa Earl are collaborating to bring these people’s stories to life using shadows, objects, puppets and people.

Dorothy is eighty, lives alone in a Victorian house in Birmingham. She has one eye, no teeth and a soft spot for Starsky and Hutch. Michael is eighty-eight. Gnarled and bed ridden, he dreams of dancing and wild horses.

Dorothy’s story is told through the memories of her eight-year old grand-daughter who spent many weekends alone with her. This is a portrait of older age told through the eyes of a child.

Michael’s story focuses on the last year of his life spent in hospital. This portrait explores his changing states of mind, slipping between dream, reality and memory. This is a man preparing to die.

Vanessa Earl
Trained at the Jacques Lecoq International Theatre School and the Laboratory for the Study of Movement in Paris. For sixteen years she has worked professionally making theatre. Among others she has worked for the Clod Ensemble, Augusto Boal and Theatre of the Opressed, the Royal Shakespeare Company, Tom Morris and the Battersea Arts Centre, Theatre de Complicite and the National Theatre. 
Sarah Fuller
Graduated in Textile Design at Central St. Martins College of Art and Design London. In 1995 she established Dog and String Theatre and since then has devised, performed and toured shows for childrens audiences both nationally and internationally. Her visual art has been exhibited widely throughout Ireland. She has considerable experience working in Arts in health and has been exploring the therapeutic possibilities of puppetry in relation to dementia. 


Friday, November 5, 2010

Trasna


Open invite to “Trasna” Postcard Exhibition 

In conjunction with the Christmas exhibition ‘has been + is going’ 25th November to 6th January, The Courthouse Gallery Ennistymon is inviting A5 postcard submissions from national and international artists. Postcard- max 19cm x 13.5cm size, in any medium and clearly label on back artists name, title, medium, address, mobile number and email address. Post to Trasna, The Courthouse Gallery and Studios, Parliament St., Ennistymon, Co. Clare, by 16th Novemeber.  All postcards priced at 40euro including 25% gallery commission. There will be an auction on opening night and prices may increase. ennistymoncourthousegallery@gmail.com

The Bahh Band


 The Bahh Band 
concert in the gallery to launch their new CD



“Worlds Colliding”
Friday 12th November @  9pm
door: €15,  includes CD!
                                             


The Bahh Band
The Bahh Band are a rapidly evolving group of seven eclectic musicians based in the cultural melting pot of Galway in the West of Ireland. Their unique and soulful blending of such diverse influences as Indian classical music, bluegrass, Irish music, vocal improvisation and groove laden rhythms have won them many fans at their regular appearances in festivals such as Body N Soul, Electric Picnic and the Festival of World Cultures. The group began as a three piece founded by Australian born, Mattu who plays the sarode (a 25 stringed Indian lute), Italian tabla player, Ciro Montanari and Galway bluesman, Tom Portman on the dobro (a slide resonator guitar). However, the group has constantly been seeking a greater density of sound and have expanded to include the dynamic Pauli Smalls (double bass), 2 vocalists (Ceara Conway and Goishka) and well known bodhran/percussionist Brian Fleming. They have become increasingly known for their hypnotic live shows, incorporating more guests using further percussion, drones and electronics. The Bahh Band also display an interesting choice of covers in their live repertoire, drawing on psychedelic rock riffs, jazz standards, Johnny Cash, reggae motifs and traditional Irish folk songs!!!
Most recently, in 2010, they recorded a version of Jeff Wayne’s 70’s rock opera, War of the Worlds, which received the enthusiastic approval of the author and numerous hits on youtube for their subsequent video. The band’s founding member, Mattu, received a grant from the Arts Council of Ireland to further his study in India and funding from Galway County Council to complete the group’s debut album entitled, Worlds Colliding. The group performed for thousands of people at the recent visit of Indian guru, Amma, in the RDS in Dublin and are planning a tour of England and India.
Exceedingly talented and diverse, the Bahh band mix elements of blues, bluegrass, folk and eastern sounds seamlessly” (bodynsoul.ie)
Serious shoes off music!!!” (Ronan O Snodaigh-Kila)

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Mrs.Redhead Photography


In the Red Couch Space

Perceptions
Olga Leszczynska
 
16th October – 11th November
official opening 16th October at 5 pm


  Everything in her starts with a thought which glides above the picture. The eye sees it, the mind catches it and pierces it with the free bird's beak. Individualism, passion and the technique of peeping from the other side of a mirror is connected with humbleness, a child-like admiration for the world and the resolution of a mad motorcyclist.
Born in Poland, she has been living in Ireland since 2004. She's an open, communicative risk-taker who wants to get to know the people and herself. She wants to catch the hidden pictures. That is why, by taking a camera to her hands, she feels fulfilled.

Olga invited also Peter Cierniak to exhibit some photographs.

Peter Cierniak is a freelance photographer based in Dublin and Kildare. Passionate of fantasy art. Adrenaline junkie addicted to extreme activities. Shares his time between motorbike touring adventures and his PCPA Photography Studio project. In photography he likes expression, wide angles...and no rules.

Monday, October 4, 2010

'collins. harper. lane.' - new paintings. Launch on Saturday 16th of October at 5 PM by Doris Staal.

Artists John Collins, Charles Harper and John Lane are about to present a selection of brand new works for the very first time to the public on that date ,with the show running until November 11th 2010.

Travelling from Americas east coast to officially open proceedings is New York artist Doris Staal. No stranger to our shores, Doris has spent most every summer sketching and painting along our western coastline and is honoured to return in this official capacity to open the show.

Doris Staal is a lecturer at National Academy & School of Fine Arts, New York City which is situated across the road from The Metropolitan Museum of Art on 5th Avenue. She has worked with high profile artists from the New York scene over the years including Robert Mejer, Robert DiNiro Snr; and Hans Hoffman
In addition to yearly faculty shows at National Academy, her work has appeared in exhibitions across the United states, the University of Wales, and Skidmore College where she was the recipient of several fellowships. Her work is included in the print collection of the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, amongst others.

All 3 contributing artists will also be in attendance on Saturday the 16th, so a real treat in store for all art lovers who wish to visit the opening.

'Limerick Clown - A Head for Hats' by John Collins
John Collins is a Limerick artist who’s works are instantly recognisable as his composition continues to be dominated chiefly in red and white settings. As you would expect from Collins, there is a poetic outlook yet a dark approach to his work which becomes immediately obvious with his representative colour and structure. Primarily, a self taught artist, he also studied art at LSAD and his works are part of private collections in Ireland, England, France and the United States.



'Delayed Race' by Charles Harper

Charles Harper is retired Head of Fine Art at LSAD and while lecturing at the Limerick campus was a founding member of Aosdana. He was the initiating dynamism behind ev+a, Limerick‘s annual international arts exhibition, and is a council member of the Royal Hibernian academy and a member of Limerick Printmakers. Harper has contributed to private and public collections both nationally an internationally throughout the world. Most recent is his One-Man Show at Wexford Vocational College and Gormley Fine Art Gallery in Dublin & Belfast. Group shows include: RHA, Iontas prize winners Show in 2004 and the Amnasty show in Dublin.

 
'Just to know Peace' by John Lane


John Lane is a local artist, born and raised in Ennis Co Clare. After studying art in Limerick and Sligo John ended up homeless for a short spell, coming out of this stronger and more positive he began this new series of work, delving into his soul and the souls of those who view his paintings.
Willie Doherty remarked “Each painting is like a song” after viewing John’s work in Belfast.






Tuesday, September 28, 2010

An Evening of Poetry

Salmon Poetry 
continues its successful reading series in the gallery,  with a special reading to celebrate 
All Ireland Poetry Day, 
7pm, Thursday 7th October,

 Admission is free. 

The featured readers are:

Rita Ann Higgins - Internationally acclaimed Galway poet Rita Ann Higgins reads from her new book, Hurting God - Part Essay Part Rhyme, just published by Salmon, which includes essays and accompanying poems, drawing us into a childhood world of God, púcas, jiving factory girls and a crocodile-wielding father. Her first five collections were published by Salmon: Goddess on the Mervue Bus (1986); Witch in the Bushes (1988); Goddess and Witch (1990); Philomena's Revenge (1992); and, Higher Purchase (1996). Bloodaxe Books published her next three collections: Sunny Side Plucked (1996); An Awful Racket (2001); and Throw in the Vowels: New & Selected Poems in May 2005 to mark her 50th birthday.
Kevin Higgins is co-organiser of Over The Edge literary events. He facilitates poetry workshops at Galway Arts Centre, teaches creative writing at Galway Technical Institute and on the Brothers of Charity Away With Words programme. He is also Writer-in-Residence at Merlin Park Hospital and the poetry critic of the Galway Advertiser. He has had three books published with Salmon, The Boy With No Face, Time Gentlemen, Please and, earlier this year, Frightening New Furniture.
Susan Millar DuMars is American-born, now living in Galway. Also co-organiser of Galway's Over the Edge events, she works as a teacher of creative writing, and has had two books published with Salmon; Big Pink Umbrella and Dreams for Breakfast. She also writes fiction.
Mary Madec was born and raised in the west of Ireland, and is currently Director of the Villanova Study Abroad Program in Galway. With her husband Claude Madec, she started up a community-writing project, Away with Words, now in its third year. She published her first collection, In Other Words, with Salmon this year.
Mary Mullen, taught memoir writing at Galway Arts Centre, and now tutors writers privately. Mary was born in Anchorage, and raised on her parent's homestead in Soldotna, Alaska. She moved to Ballinderreen, Co. Galway, Ireland in 1996, where she still lives with her daughter Lily, a sparkly Galway girl who was born with Down Syndrome. Her first collection, Zephyr, was published by Salmon this year.
Glenn Shea was born and has lived most of his life in Connecticut. He is living for the moment in an old farmhouse in Uncasville and works with a group of illuminati in a huge used-book shop in Niantic, Connecticut. He has published two chapbooks. Find A Place That Could Pass For Home, his first full-length collection, has just appeared from Salmon.
Jessie Lendennie
Managing Director
Salmon Poetry Ltd.
Knockeven
Cliffs of Moher

http://salmonpoetry.com

Monday, September 13, 2010

Domingo Cuatindioy: YACHARUNA / Shaman. Mosaics, paintings, prints and carvings.


“Yacharuna”, an exhibition by indigenous artist Domingo Cuatindioy opened in the Courthouse Gallery on Saturday 11 September at 5pm by poet Brian Mooney, with music by Michael Hynes and Denis Liddy.

Domingo Cuatindioy was born in 1959 into the Ingano tribe, whose homeland in the foothills of the Colombian Andes is a repository of ancient culture and knowledge. It is here the river Putumayo, a major tributary of the Amazon, has its source. The valley itself, known as the “gateway of the Amazon rain forest”, has a powerful and distinct earth energy as well as a strong tradition of natural healers.

Domingo’s people are subsistence farmers and by eight years of age he was already working as a day labourer to help support his family. With only a few months primary education and no artistic training, he suddenly began to draw and paint in his mid-thirties.

His creative inspiration comes from a deep affinity with the natural world, as well as from his experience in the shamanic arts acquired during twenty years with the Siona tribe in the Amazon rain forest of Bajo Putumayo, where he went to live at the age of fifteen.

In the Ingano and Siona cultures the veil between the natural and the supernatural worlds is gossamer thin. Interaction between spirit beings, mortals and animals is part of everyday reality, and dreams are a highly respected source of guidance. For Domingo the unexpected emergence of the artist within, at the age of thirty four and, a year or two later in 1996, his voyage through time and space from the equatorial rain forest to the edge of the Burren in North Clare, were miraculous transformations in his life equal to any in the history of his tribe. The time away from tribal life proved crucial in Domingo’s development as an artist because it allowed him the personal space necessary for his special gift to blossom.

His work, which consists of paintings, carvings, linocuts, wood engravings and, more recently, mosaics on canvas and bone, is characterised by its innate strength of design and loving attention to detail. Above all each piece has a unique and evocative presence.

Since the very positive response to Domingo’s first exhibition in Ennis in 1999, his work has been shown in numerous solo and group exhibitions in Ireland, France, U.K. and Colombia and is to be found in public and private collections in Europe and the Americas.

“Yacharuna”, meaning shaman in the Inga language, is Domingo’s sixth solo exhibition. The show runs until Thursday 7 October.




Domingo Cuatindioy: YACHARUNA / Shaman. Mosaics, paintings, prints and carvings.
Courthouse Gallery, Parliament Street, Ennistymon, Co. Clare. T: 065 707 1630
Opens Sat 11 Sept 5pm, runs until Thurs 7 Oct | Opening Hours  Tues – Sat 12pm - 5pm

Wednesday, September 8, 2010

Unfolding

Unfolding
by Fiona Woods 
11th September - 7 October

For her exhibition in the Red Couch Space Fiona Woods will convert the area into a studio. Over the course of the exhibition she will develop a new work which has been commissioned for the TULCA festival of Visual Art in Galway, opening in November. The exhibition will take the form of an unfolding, as ideas and images are developed over time, taking on a gradual visual and physical form in the space. The artist will follow her normal work schedule and will be present most weekdays between 10 and 12.


Fiona Woods is a visual artist whose practice includes curating and writing. She has received a number of commissions to make work, including the recent project Collections of mimds #1 www.collectionofminds.net for PS2, Belfast. She is a participant in Rhyzom, a European research network exploring local cultural productions and trans-local disseminations www.rhyzom.net. Woods is a recipient of the Arts Council of Ireland@s 2010Visual Arts Bursary award.

Saturday, August 14, 2010

Eddie Stack

Eddie Stack will read stories here in the gallery which are set in Clare on Aug. 25th.

 

 The reading coincides with the publication of a new edition of his classic book The west. The cover of this edition features a painting by Phillip Morrison of Blake's Corner, Ennistymon.



        Wednesday 25th August
   8pm at the Courthouse Gallery




www.eddiestack.com
blog:ballylara.wordpress.com/

Monday, August 9, 2010

NO BOUNDARIES and EXPLANATIONS Official Launch on Aug 7th at 5pm by Noel Crowley


NO BOUNDARIES Paintings and Textile Art by Anne Korff and Joke Buursma


Artists Anne Korff and Joke Buursma are both inspired by exotic cultural elements from Africa and the Middle East.

Joke Buursma originally from The Netherlands makes Textile Art. She uses a mix of commercial and hand-dyed fabrics. Her work is mainly figurative. In “No Boundaries” there is a series of five pieces with the zebra as a theme.
During the process of creating the zebras, Joke discovered the stunning African adobe architecture of Mali, hence one of the zebra pieces contains some details of an adobe wall. Other pieces are inspired by cultural elements from Ireland, Syria, and France. In her piece Intercultural Ireland Joke made a connection between Celtic Ireland, Christianity and Islam, because in a relatively short time Ireland has changed to a multi cultural society.

Joke's work has been exhibited not only in Ireland, but also in The Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, France, and the U.K. Her work has been accepted in a number of juried quilt exhibitions, and this year one of her pieces is accepted by the European Art Quilt Foundation and will be part of the exhibition which will travel for two years in a number of EU countries. Two of her pieces (Intercultural Ireland, and, Zebra IV) have been accepted by the RDS Craft Show in Dublin in 2009, which is proof of excellence of workmanship and design.

Anne Korff’s latest paintings are inspired by visits to Morocco, Tunisia, Andalusia and a recent visit to remote parts in south east Turkey - an area bordering Syria and Iraq. Two aspects struck her in particular: the first being the swamping of traditional life styles and architecture by all the trappings of a western consumer society; the second being the abstract nature of Islamic design and its meditative qualities.

Anne is well known through her work with Tír Eolas a publishing company she founded in 1987. Her illustrations of the archaeology of the Burren and its history led to the publication of a series of guides and maps and, in cooperation with several authors, to The Book of the Burren. In 2007 she had a solo exhibition On the Sea, a series of drawings and paintings based on her numerous trips sailing around the west coast of Ireland in her 29 foot yacht Jade.

This exhibition is a celebration of the beauty of Islamic art as seen by a 'Westerner'. She hopes to encourage the viewer to embrace cultural diversity and the opening of a dialogue that might help build bridges between the Christian and Islamic worlds.





'East meets West' by Anne Korff
'Zebra' by Joke Buursma

'EXPLANATIONS THROUGH CLAY' by Sarah Comerford, Sinead O'Connell, Zania Koppe, Diane Reid


The title 'Explanations' comes from the difficulties that arise with putting forward something so personal and then feeling the need to back up or explain its purpose, to clarify the idea behind it. Working with clay and its different firing/ drying stages can be unpredictable and the process can tend to go its own way. Explanations are necessary but can have a huge impact on the viewers' impression of the finished work.

'Horses' by Sarah Comerford
'Horse' by Sinead O'Connell
'Sammeltasse' by Zania Koppe
'Image' by Diane Reid





                               

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

STOP MOTION ANIMATION WORKSHOPS with Vanessa Daws

Stop Motion Animation workshop at The Courthouse Gallery, Ennistymon
with artist Vanessa Daws.
MONDAY 9 / 10 /11 & 12 AUG, from 12 - 4 PM
For teenagers & adults
2 x 2 day course
€25 per day, minimum of two days


During the workshops participants will use different stop motion animation techniques such as sand animation, bringing drawings to life, claymation and making objects appear to move by themselves.
In groups the participants will develop storyboards, build characters and sets, use sound and take lots of photos! When these photos are played at 12 frames per second the characters they created will magically come to life.
All the animations will be edited with music and DVD's sent out to all the participants.

Booking is essential as places are limited.

To book a place, please contact the Courthouse Gallery: 065-7071630 or send an email: ennistymoncourthousegallery@gmail.com

Thursday, July 15, 2010

"Site Meetings160710"

Site Meetings 160710: Ennistymon based artists Alexandra Boettcher, Maeve Collins and Maria Kerin will be performing a site-specific , once off work in the gallery on Friday 16th at 8pm sharp. This interactive performance includes skyping live to an audience in America. The audience here are welcome to experience this free multimedia performance of non-stylised embodied movement with live sound that explores points of meeting from different perspectives in the gallery space.
See www.sitemeetings.blogspot.com for more information.

Artists statement:  Ennistymon based artists Alexandra Boettcher, Maeve Collins and Maria Kerin are creating through live performance and new media. Through a variety of media: drawing, film, internet, sound, instillation and dance they perform through non-stylised movement a response to the site as it offers a place of arrival, a meeting place for a live embodied movement process that stems out of a shared daily movement practice. As visitors to a site they  receive and give, trusting that the space will provide a point of resistance and potential for transformation through creativity they explore presence with meeting points in contemporary culture. 

Riches of Clare

Riches of Clare 
Lunchtime Concert
Friday 16th July 1pm - 2pm   FREE EVENT

Traditional Irish Music
Johnjo Kelly, Liam Joyce, Carmel O'Dea & Treasa O'Dea

Monday, July 12, 2010

LAUNCH of O'CONNOR, PRENDERGAST, SHARP and HANRAHAN EXHIBITION



'ENNISTYMON HORSE FAIR' new paintings by Michael Hanrahan

MICHAEL HANRAHAN ‘Ennistymon Horse Fair’

2nd July – 29th July opening 3 July at 5 pm





Michael Hanrahan is a studio artist at the Courthouse Gallery in Ennistymon, Co Clare. he is just back from a world cruise on the largest ocean liner in the world.
He was the Art instructor on board of the Cunard's flagship 'Queen Mary 2'.
He travelled and taught Watercolour painting as he cruised from Cape Town, to St.Helena, Rio de Janeiro, Barbados, Florida, New York, and back to Southampton.
Michael has followed up a long banking career with a move to the world of Art.
He studied at NCAD and at the Burren College of Art.

His new work is inspired by the Horse Fair held each April and November in the busy market town of Ennistymon. He captures the colour, the excitement, and characters of the horse fair. http://www.michaelhanrahan.net

This exhibition is in conjunction with the O’CONNOR, PRENDERGAST, SHARP exhibition : LANDSCAPES OF N & W CLARE in the Main Gallery of the Courthouse.

Saturday, June 26, 2010

O'Connor,Prendergast, Sharp, Landscapes of N. & W. Clare

2nd July - 29th July

This exhibition will open on Saturday 3rd July at 5pm

These three artists roam the roads of Clare; no longer with knapsack and easel but driving as we all do, and suddenly seeing something across a field or even in the wing of a mirror.
 

Mike O'Connor arrives home with scrapes of notes and pencil-drawings, which also may stay pinned in view for many months before being processed as a black and white or multicolour linocut. The need then, since a print is made through indirect stages, is to restore the energy of the first viewing - through varied style / technique of block cutting and hand printing.




Tom Prendergast hunts by road , from Kilkee to Kilbaha, often spending painstaking hours on a postcard size oil painting onto hardboard. Other images are brought home to be formalized into strong, simple elements with cutout paper.





or Richard Sharp and his dog there will be a screech of brakes, a clatter of dulex cans, and some bright thing will be rapidly recorded in pastels, Indian Ink or gloss paint, on canvas or MDF board. Some will be completed in minutes while others may wait their turn for a year before being resolved.

Thursday, June 17, 2010

Niamh Parsons and Graham Dunne

Niamh Parsons has come to be known as one of the most distinctive voices in Irish music. She will give a concert tonight in the Courthouse Gallery at 9pm.  She will be playing in a duet with Graham Dunne.      Admission €13

Site Meetings 170610



Site Meetings 170610 was performed today by Maria Kerin and Maeve Collins and broadcast from a specific street sculpture site in the AbunDANCE International Choreography and Dance Festival in Karlstad, Sweden. It was broadcast using Skype new media and video projection, and our audience experienced it  LIVE  here in the Gallery in Ennistymon, Co. Clare.

                                        Maeve Collins

Maria Kerin



for more information:
sitemeetings.blogspot.com

Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Light, Space and the Body

Light, Space and the Body

 22nd May - 24th June

 Maeve Collins 
 Karen Hendy
 Adam Pomeroy

An exhibition of work by three artists who are all coming to the body through a journey of individual enquiry and process. The show comprises of mixed media artworks, drawing and painting.
 
  
                                               

Maeve Collins uses drawing to begin going back into her body, where transparent materials are layered in sculptural artworks, incorporating light and space. The layering of surfaces attempts to hold a fleeting sense of drawings from the body. The qualities of these embodied works reveal a tense stillness and an expressive quietness with a reflective need.
                                                                            

 
  Karen Hendy's work represents her desire to capture the cycle of change, which is characteristic of impermanence; the disintegration and reinvention of reality, a process that is never at rest, and how this relates to the body. To do this Hendy works through painting, where she uses oil on canvas to express this desire in very abstracted colourful artworks.  




Adam Pomeroy: "In these works, the figure has been realistically depicted, but placed in a background that is devoid of time and place. This serves to challenge its solidity and subvert the illusion of reality. The subject shares no common truth with the viewer; it exists only within its own space. The figure is used as a means to question what we are alone and nameless."