CASe '17

CASe Cormac Boydell, Billy Foley, Eilis O’ Connell, Maria Simonds-Gooding, Charles Tyrell, and Samuel Walsh

3rd October to 28th October

Cormac Boydell Diarmuid and Grainne Ceramic

Cormac Boydell Dearg Corra Ceramic

Cormac Boydell Just Trotting Ceramic

Samuel Walsh Locus XLIV (San Marco) Acrylic and Oil on Canvas

Samuel Walsh, Study 293 (Berlin), Acrylic on Paper

Samuel Walsh, Segment 015, Encre de Chine on Paper

Maria Simonds-Gooding Earth Shelters I Carborundum Print

Maria Simonds-Gooding Earth Shelters II Carborundum Print

Maria Simonds-Gooding Earth Sheleter III Carborundum Print

Maria Simonds-Gooding Earth Shelters Carborundum Print

Eilis O’ Connell MRI Diffusion Embossed Print

Eilis O’ Connell Purkinje Embossed Print

Eilis O’ Connell Morphwall Cast Bronze

Charles Tyrrell T11.16 Wood, Paint

Billy Foley Void between bodies.

Oil and charcoal on canvas.

Billy Foley Insight.

Oil and charcoal on canvas

Charles Tyrrell T112.16 Wood, Paint, Burnt Wood

The Lavit Gallery is delighted to present CASe, an exhibition of works by Cormac Boydell, Billy Foley, Eilis O’ Connell, Maria Simonds-Gooding, Charles Tyrell, and Samuel Walsh.

Cork Arts Society exhibition (CASe) is an annual group exhibition of invited artists that originated as ‘Six Munster Artists’ at Cork Arts Society in the 70s. While the exhibition has had many iterations since its inception, showing the work of national and international artists, this year we return to its beginnings. We have invited six contemporary artists, living and working in the Munster region, to show their work.

Maria Simonds-Gooding brings a series of carborundum prints, Earth Shelters I, II and III, derived from the landscape in the centre of Lanzarote. To protect the vegetation from the excesses of the trade winds, sun and draught the farmers have built dry stone walls in horse-shoe shapes in various clusters all facing the same direction for their protection. To overcome the drought the farmers collect volcanic ash from different parts of the island which retains sufficient moisture from the overnight dew for their survival in this strange lunar landscape.

In Billy Foley’s paintings, he is searching for that moment where on canvas painted line, space and substance come into existence as form and structure. The paintings are reduced to the essences of gesture, line, white space and primary colour to investigate the structural fabric of space and form. These works are concerned with how the figure and space are seen as binary experiences in a singular struggle.

Irish abstract sculptor, Eilis O’ Connell is known for her free-standing works and wall pieces. Pieces in bronze with titles like ‘Fling’ create a sense of movement. Working with exquisite materials such as in silver in her geometrical sculpture, and embossed prints, showcase the attention to detail, and yet the simplicity in style of her elegant work.

Cormac Boydell uses the simplicity of line and mark-making with his emphasise on the importance of the process and the nature of clay being apparent in the form and the texture of the resultant work to create his signature works. Boydell uses no tools, relishing instead on the direct contact between hands and the clay. He uses a terracotta clay chosen because of the beauty of its orangey colour which is the perfect background to the colours he works with. His understanding of glazes can be described as an alchemy of bright, brilliant colours.

Charles Tyrrell always engaged with abstraction, his work comes from a minimalist starting point and leaving room for the intuitive builds towards work that reaches out and resonates. In the early 1980s, Tyrrell worked with floorboards salvaged from St. Peter’s Church on Aungier Street in Dublin, prior to its demolition. He decided to re-visit this arena more than thirty years later. We will be showing two large wooden pieces, along with smaller framed drawings.

Rather than a picture of a place, Samuel Walsh responds to them, sometimes using colour and line to liberate the essence of what has been observed. Line in his paintings usually indicates activity both physical and mental and form refers to structure. The compositional values are most important. The painting Locus XLIV (San Marco) refers to a famous Florentine church and convent called San Marco (St Mark) with murals

by Fra Angelico (c1395-1455). That final word should not be taken too literally as a place can be a state of mind as well as a geographical area.

Exhibition continues until Saturday 28th October

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The Lavit Gallery is delighted to invite you to the opening of CASe ’17 Thursday 5th October 5.00 - 7.00pm

Images: Eilis O’ Connell, Fling, Cast Bronze. Maria Simonds- Gooding, Earth Shelterings II, Carborundum Print. Charles Tyrrell, T11.16, Wood and Paint. Samuel Walsh Study 293 (Berlin), Acrylic on Paper.