Volume 2, Issue 2 by The Bridge TCD

Volume 2, Issue 2. April 2016 Art, Architecture + Design

CIARA HARRISON THE MOTH CLIODHNA TIMONEY DUPA WHAT’S ON IN DUBLIN + MORE

HARRIET BRUCE

THEBRIDGETCD.COM ISSUU.COM/THEBRIDGETCD

‘THE LABRYNTH, BEIRUT, 2012’, PHILIP SCHULER

CONTENTS

18 2 What’s On in Dublin 4 Ruins of Dublin Review 5 Bill Lynch Review 6 Jesse Jones Review 7 RHA Annual Exhibition Review 8 Luke Hally 10 Ciara Harrison 12 #ihavethisthingwith... 14 Paddy Joe Rickard + Alex De Roeck 16 Cliodhna Timoney 18 DUPA End of Year Exhibition 20 The Moth 21 Selﬁes EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: ELISABETH ROCHFORD BUSINESS MANAGER: ELEANOR HUGHES PRO: AMELIE MATUSCHKA ILLUSTRATOR: HARRIET BRUCE CONTRIBUTING WRITERS: LIZ STEWART, ELEANOR HUGHES, LUKE FITZHERBERT, KAROLINA BADZMIEROWSKA, TILLY DUNNE, BELLA WHITE, KILDINE DE SAINT HILAIRE, AISLINN IRVINE

DESIGN: KELLY CONLON THANK YOU: GREHAN PRINTERS, TRINITY PUBLICATIONS CONTACT: THEBRIDGEMAGAZINETCD@GMAIL. COM FRONT COVER: ‘WAVES’ BY HARRIET BRUCE

WE’RE HIRING! APPLY HERE: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/YMJMSG2 OR DROP US AN EMAIL 1

WHAT’S ON IN DUBLIN

THE WONDERFUL BARN, MICHAEL BORAN

Listings for April + beyond Compiled by Amelie Matuschka

Michael Boran Through the Undergrowth

Boran captures the ﬂeeting traces of interactions between people and places in a series of scientiﬁc laboratory-like photographs. Kevin Kavanagh Gallery April 7 - April 30

KERLIN GALLERY Iwano by Richard Gorman An exhibition of new work on Echizen kozo washi paper, recognising the late master paper producer Iwano Heizaburo. 16 March - 7 May

NATIONAL GALLERY OF IRELAND Pathos of Distance Sarah Pierce visualises the Irish migration and diaspora across 42 images created between 1813 and 1912. December 2 - June 26

Siobhán Hapaska Known for her varied and exciting sculptures which often play with sound and light, Hapsaka delivers the unexpected, creating intense environments for audiences. 18 March - 17 May

THE HUGH LANE Jesse Jones: NO MORE FUN AND GAMES Continuing the gallery’s theme of Artist as Witness, Jones explores feminism in Ireland through a cinematic experience. 11 February - 26 June

IMMA IMMA Collection: A Decade A snapshot of how IMMA’s Collection has developed over the past 10 years in series of changing displays. 28 April - 1 January Simon Fujiwara The Humanizer British/Japanese artist Fujiwara explores Irish nationalist, Sir Roger Casement’s extraordinary biography in accordance with the 1916 Rising commemoration 20 May - 28 August

High Treason: Roger Casement John Lavery’s monumental painting has made its away from Kings Inn to be the centrepiece of the exhibition in The Hugh Lane. 10 March - 2 October MOLESWORTH GALLERY Eminent Domain by Gillian Lawler Lawler’s ﬁrst solo exhibition references the reality of Centralia, a mining landscape stumbled upon in Bill Bryson’s A Walk in the Woods. April 8 - April 30

Alan Phelan: Casement in Exile Set in 1941, Phelan’s short ﬁlm examines a future for Roger Casement had he not been executed in 1916. 10 March - 2 October

Untitled by Vera Klute German-born/ Dublin-based Klute exhibits her versatile work across a variety of mediums, from tapestry to portraits. May 12 - June 16

The Artist as Witness in Society: Collection This theme of artistic, social and political ﬂux engendered by the 1916 Rising, oﬀers diverse perspectives on how artists depicted the changing world around them. 10 March - 2 October

CHESTER BEATTY Lapis and Gold, The Story of the Ruzbihan Qur’an Thirty-two single folios and double-page openings are displayed of this mid-sixteenth century century Iranian Qur’an. 15 April - 28 August

EASTWARDS 2, PATRICIA BURNS

Patricia Burns. Dublin Paintings

Burns’ new body of work explores childhood and a dismantling of the artist’s family home of forty years through paint. Taylor Galleries 1 April - 23 April

PROJECT ARTS CENTRE Empireland by Mark O’Kelly O’Kelly’s newly commissioned painting presents an abstract roadmap of Ireland’s evolution born of rebellion. 1 April - 28 May NCAD GALLERY Blueprint for a Storm by Russell Mills Known for his award-winning album covers for Brian Eno and Nine Inch Nails, the NCAD Gallery brings Russell Mills for a solo exhibition. 6 April - 29 April THE DOORWAY GALLERY The Equus Connection by Tony O’Connor O’Connor’s newest exhibition depict the grace, beauty & strength of The Horse and will be officially opened by broadcaster Tracy Piggott. April 7 - May 5 GALLERY OF PHOTOGRAPHY Reflecting 1916 ‘Reflecting 1916’ features eyewitnesses photographs during the pivotal period in Ireland’s history, many pieces featured for the first time. 19 March - 1 May

TEMPLE BAR GALLERY + STUDIOS The Hopeless End of a Great Dream by Declan Clarke Using Trinity College Dublin as a backdrop, this ﬁlm takes a number of forgotten episodes in Irish history, grounding them in the ‘political present’. 22 April - 18 June My Brilliant Friend by Michelle Browne, Ella De Burca, Avril Corroon, Lisa Marie Johnson, Jesse Jones Five artists to consider female solidarity, work, economy, protest and how to negotiate life in Dublin as an artist and a woman in 2016. 1 July - 10 September THE DOUGLAS HYDE GALLERY Bill Lynch Lynch’s collection range from dense and active paintings to making use of empty spaces, belying the extensive deliberation aﬀorded to his subjects March 4 - May 4

THE AMBASSADOR THEATRE Revolution 1916 The Ambassador Theatre, just minutes from the centre of the 1916 Rising, host the largest private collection of artefacts from the Rebellion. 27 February - 15 October SOLOMON FINE ART GALLERY Comhghall Casey This ﬁne art painter revels in painting the mundane, attempting to freeze their presence yet elevating these everyday objects so sublime pieces. 6 May - 28 May Julie Cusack Cusack’s work is based on a cool, airy and soft pallette, providing a free feeling in colouring, oﬀset bu a disciplined approach to composition. 3 June - 25 June

REVIEW

The Ruins of Dublin, 1916 - A Photographic Record by Thomas Johnson Westropp The Library of Trinity College Dublin & Google Cultural Institute ELEANOR HUGHES The sheer amount of events and exhibitions celebrating the centenary of the Easter Rising is almost overwhelming. However one showcase of particular note is the Library of Trinity College Dublin’s new online photography exhibition, The Ruins Of Dublin, 1916 – A Photographic Record By Thomas Johnson Westropp. It is in collaboration with and available on Google Cultural Institute. The Google Cultural Institute partners with cultural institutions from around the world to bring the world’s heritage to your screens and ﬁngertips. This exhibition falls under the theme Ireland Easter Rising 1916, on a platform where many other Irish cultural institutes have also contributed material. Google Cultural Institute crops some of these images from the original album to maximise viewing potential online. The Ruins of Dublin, 1916 documents the rubble and ruins of Dublin city, just after the 1916 Easter Rising. The photos were mainly taken between the 17th and 18th of May 1916 by the photographer, Thomas Johnson Westropp, (1860-1922) an alumnus of Trinity College Dublin. He was also an archaeologist, Irish antiquarian and a member of the RIA. His documentary and archival approach to the ruins is evident in this photographic survey. They have been carefully labelled and mounted, suggesting that when he was documenting these buildings, he was aware of their importance for future generations. Westropp takes us on a journey of the city and its buildings, from Mount Street to Sackville Street (now O’Connell Street) where combat evidently took place between Irish rebels and British forces. Crumbling exteriors, shattered windows and bullet pierced walls characterise these photographs. The pictures of the G.P.O. are particularly striking as Westropp captures its

fragile gutted interior, while its landmark colonnaded portico remains stoic and solid. The noted by the Library of Trinity College Dublin, ‘these images bring vividly to life the impact of the Rising on everyday life in Dublin.’ Indeed the excellent zoom feature employed by Westropp allows examination of the smallest details of life, from WWI posters on the street, to shop signage, to people’s clothing. The merits of the digital medium of display certainly triumphs traditional display for this particular intrigue of these photographs. The rawness of the events in the Easter Rising is evident through the behaviour of the people in these photographs. Many stop and stare at the ruins before them or continue to go about their everyday business. Westropp is ultimately part of this general curiosity surrounding the ruins. On Google Cultural Institute Westropp’s photographs are accompanied by video archival footage by Pathé, which documents similar scenes to the photographs. The note accompanying the video footage on the platform says: ‘It is tempting to think that Westropp himself could be amongst the crowds.’ Westropp’s photographs allow a fascinating insight into what the everyday Dubliner witnessed in the aftermath of the 1916 Rising. The Ruins Of Dublin, 1916 - A Photographic Record By Thomas Johnson Westropp is available on www.google.com/culturalinstitute. The original document MS 5870 can also be discovered on: http://digitalcollections.tcd.ie. PHOTO: FOLIO 9R ‘WRECKED HOUSE NEXT TO LIBERTY HALL’, © THE BOARD OF TRINITY COLLEGE DUBLIN

REVIEW

Bill Lynch

Douglas Hyde Gallery March 4th - May 4th LUKE FITZHERBERT

From left to right: ‘UNTITLED (BLUE VASE), ‘UNTITLED (FAMILY)’ and ‘UNTITLED “DEAR LOVE HAPPY EASTER 1987 BILL”

The Bill Lynch exhibition currently showing at the Douglas Hyde Gallery comprises twelve pieces, all of which are oils on wood. Lynch, who struggled with schizophrenia, sadly passed away in 2013, at the age of fifty-three. The subject matter of his compositions seems preoccupied with the delicate, and nimbleness found in nature, and life within it, reflecting his Chinese and Japanese influences. His paintings depict flower leaves, thin, twiglike trees attached to blossoming leaves, owls in trees, insects on branches, spider webs and flies, and still water with floating dragonflies. The subjects are also personal - his dog ‘Sammy’ featuring prominently in two paintings.

owl’s tree imply a constructive contribution to the various branches and structure to the tree, which make up the owl’s home. The incorporation of the imperfect canvas is further enhanced by Lynch’s emphasis on negative space, which Lynch manages to exude from the central subject, with particular tricks, such as colour contrast. The two apes in Untitled (Family) are not only surrounded by darkness, but are part of it themselves, only their visages and upper body parts emanate, and this borderless method allows the central image to exude the outer space of the canvas. There is a refreshing dose of ingenuity in Lynch’s use of space. The smallest painting is of flowers painted on a split log surface, Untitled ‘Dear Love Happy Easter 1987 Bill’. Each side of the frame is of a greater combined width than the painting itself. Such proportions between canvas and frame, inclines one to see them both as part of the same image. This effect is enhanced by the rough and sandy speckles on the fringes of the painting, and dotted around the frame. Other pieces rely on the bareness of the canvass, to evoke a practical wholeness, such as a jug on a wooden table. The paintings all offer something different, but with an innovative and refreshingly unplanned sense to them.

The twelve pieces vary in size and shape, and canvas, with few framed pieces. Many of Lynch’s canvasses are salvaged plywood pieces; some painted over entirely, others left bare. Either way the imperfections in the wood – their texture; grains and roots; shape and size; contrasting surface; the indented shapes, stapled nails put in it, or left in it – are incorporated with spontaneous innovation into each painting’s composition. Untitled (Blue Vase), achieves an added depth by how the paint highlights the texture of the plywood, which serves as a gauge behind which Lynch has painted a semi-veiled moon. Likewise the staples dotted about the

REVIEW

186th Annual Exhibition

Royal Hibernian Academy 22 March - 11 June KILDINE DE SAINT HILAIRE The Royal Hibernian Academy Annual Exhibition celebrated its 186th opening to the public on Monday 21st of March after a very successful varnishing day on Sunday 20th. The R.H.A seeks to promote traditional and innovative approaches to art through its Annual programme. This event is a deeply engraved tradition within the Academy and the Irish art calendar linking it back to its original model: the French Academy and the Salons. Until the 1940s the R.H.A Annual Exhibition was the primary venue for Irish artists to show their work in Ireland. Last year, the members of the R.H.A elected to have the exhibition open by Easter in order to mark the one hundred year anniversary of the 1916 Rising. The show includes over 500 works drawn from open submission and ranging from various mediums including painting, drawing, prints, sculpture, and photography. The challenge of exhibiting a show so dense in quantity and broad in thematic span is remarkably rendered by the R.H.A. Director, Patrick T. Murphy, and curator, Ruth Carroll. Like the previous years, the Tony Ryan Gallery on the ground ﬂoor was dedicated to exclusively exhibiting photography - a recent addition to the exhibition that only started in 2001. ‘It is the most clean of all spaces,’ explains Ruth Carroll, pointing to the grey ﬂoor, low lighting, and smaller scale, which enable an immediate relationship between the work and the viewer. The best advice I en was to approach

was givthe exhi-

© Royal Hibernian Academy bition as a visual promenade, and to stop at any piece that caught my eye and spend time looking at it. Then, come again. The abundance of works is challenging to digest throughout a single visit, and one’s attention span tends to fade after a certain amount of time. Aidan Dunne commenced his critique of last year’s exhibition with a sentence by the Chinese director Zhang Yimou: ‘To survive is to win.’ This motto is more than appropriate for the R.H.A which has survived since 1823. It has had to reinvent itself, to adapt and renew its exhibition and membership programmes while staying relevant to contemporary art production. The 186th Annual Exhibition is an impactful exhibition that follows you long after leaving the gallery.

REVIEW

Jesse Jones: NO MORE FUN AND GAMES

haps ‘expected’ to be represented. The name of the exhibition is inspired by the American militant feminist organisation CELL 16.

The Hugh Lane Gallery, 11 February – 26 June. BELLA WHITE

‘We tried not to make the show feel super didactic in terms of the structure of it’, Jones confesses in the exhibition. The aesthetic vision is not In 2016’s Ireland, women’s rights remain as her priority. Instead she focuses on a ‘mapping important as ever. In the midst of the moveof relations between people and the world’. The ment to Repeal the Eighth Amendment, Jesse gallery is transformed into a cinematic expeJones is uniting artists and women in her latest rience, albeit a cinematic expeexhibition: NO MORE FUN rience without film. The space AND GAMES. Blending art ‘ In truth, there is the actor, and the artwork is and cinema, Jones focuses on an event rather than an object. is nothing [women] the aspirations and struggles of women in an attempt to redefine, or at least question, how our national institutions define the female figure.

can call their own but death, not even that small model of their servile clay which forms a paste and a cover to their bones ‘ .

A new musical score, Pneuma, by the distinguished US composer Gerald Busby, ﬁlls the gallery space. Taking inspiration from Robert Altman’s ﬁlm Continuing The Hugh Lane 3 Women (1977), which examGallery’s 2016 theme of Artines the complexity of a shared ist as Witness, Jesse has set identity and the female conup the Feminist Parasite Insciousness, Jones has twinned stitution to discuss ideas and ANNA DOYLE WHEELER a sonic journey with a selecexperiences for the exhibition. tion of visual works, includAn informal group of women, ing those of Agnes Martin and from feminist and political activists to art hisElizabeth Magill, taken from The Hugh Lane tory graduates, and of course Jones herself, an Collection itself. Gripping live performances artist and Fine Art lecturer at Cork’s Crawford have been incorporated into the exhibition, College of Art & Design, they have met weekchanging daily, from Tara McKeon, Niamh ly to curate the exhibition and are continuing Moloney and Rachel Fallon to Jesse herself. to develop new ideas to add to the installation. The words of Judith Butler ring true when it comes to this exhibition: ‘There is no value to be derived in silencing disputes. The questions are: how best to have them, how most productively to stage them and how to act in ways that acknowledge the irreversible complexity of who we are.’

Jones’ main interest lies in feminist curatorial practice and what institutions really represent - in particular the visual and conceptual space dominated by patriarchal institutions. Focusing on empowerment and social renewal, NO MORE FUN AND GAMES is, in some ways, a reversal of how art is per-

The People of Clockwise from bottom left: Furaha, Euphoric Intrigue, Golden Dragon, Slum Education, Tree Swing.

f Kenya

In 2014 Luke Hally visited Kenya to work in developmental aid. Whilst there he photographed the people he met, inspiring what would become ‘The People of Kenya’, a project which emphasised the multiculturalism of the country. ‘I chose to title them in Swahili, English and Arabic as these are languages which are widely used by the people along ethnic and religious lines. A major theme which I wanted to incorporate within the project was the rich and poor divide which is extremely evident within the slums of Nairobi. The eﬀects of Chinese and Indian neo-colonialism crop up and run alongside this theme throughout the project. I also wanted to give people an insight into the varied lives of the people of Kenya and in particular the poor of Kenya and how even though they may live in poverty they have a far happier outlook on life than most people living in wealthy western countries.’ WORDS & PHOTOS BY LUKE HALLY

Ciara Harrison

Liz Stewart discusses the importance of art in the 1916 commemorations with Ciara Harrison, whose exhibition, Shadowed Women, is currently on at the little museum of Dublin.

Debating any historical topic is contentious, and the centenary of the 1916 Rising is dominating Irish discourse. Discussions on the Rising itself, its signiﬁcance in Irish history, and women’s role in the Rising, often brushed over, are some of the issues at the forefront of the centenary commemoration. Acknowledging and commemorating any part of history is causing many debates and controversies, signifying history’s narration as an important issue. Art can be a stimulating experience of portraying certain aspects and narratives of history. As part of the 1916 commemorations, The Little Museum of Dublin has been running a series of exhibitions. Ciara Harrison, a Dublin based artist, created seven embroidered portraits of the wives of rebel leaders of the 1916 Rising. Ciara responded to a call out from the Museum for works based around the 1916 Rising, that would ‘create audacious public interventions that provoke, educate and entertain.’ Aware of the debate about women’s role in the Rising, and more generally in history, Ciara sought to explore this aspect of the monumental Irish event. With some inspiration from Sinead McCoole’s book Easter Widows, which ‘tells the personal narratives of the seven women and details the stories of the couples and the subsequent lives of the women after the loss of their husbands’, Ciara focussed on visually portraying these women. She wanted to show the reality of life after the Rising for these women - ‘the human, emotional side for those remaining or left behind.’ Ciara sketched drawings of these women from photo-

From left to right: ‘MAUD GONNE-MCBRIDE’ BY CIARA HARRISON, 2016, ‘KATHLEEN DALY’ BY CIARA HARRISON, 2016, CIARA HARRISON and WHITE POPPY FOR PEACE, 2016.

graphs, using charcoal. Ciara believes the use of charcoal ‘allows for energetic and fast paced drawing’ and ﬁnds it easier to capture the energy of the moment, which she cites as the important qualities when drawing. She overlaid the fabric on the drawings and sketched the outline directly on, as the fabric had translucent qualities. She then stitched the drawings of the women’s faces with a sewing machine. She noted it was important to her to ‘stay true to the photographs, to ensure the women and their features were recognisable.’ Ciara believes that we are lucky to be experiencing the centenary celebrations ‘as it has allowed for many narratives surrounding the 1916 Rising to emerge.’ She hopes that her work ‘complements Sinead McCoole’s book and encourages people to investigate and educate themselves further on the other aspects to the Rising.’ Shadowed Women is a place to

begin further exploration into the role of these women in 1916. There is a lot of debate over the representation, portrayal or in many cases lack thereof, of women in history. While there are passionate and contentious opinions surrounding the topic, it is positive to see women’s stories and representations coming to the forefront of historical debate. Ciara has been involved in other work surrounding the Rising commemora-

tions. She was approached by Newtown Junior School in Waterford, to create a passive project commemorating the Rising. ‘As an Irish National School they were required to commemorate the Rising, but as a Quaker school to commemorate the fighting and violence of the Rising would not have been staying true to their ethos of peace, pacifism and non-violence.’ She came up with an indoor garden of peace where ‘each student in the school would produce a white poppy that would contribute to the garden. The white poppy initiative began in Britain in 1933 by a women’s pacifist group who wore the white poppies to symbolise that they were against war and violence. This symbol seemed very appropriate for the project and it has a Quaker connection as it is worn by many British Quakers. Each pupil created a white poppy using recycled white material and the garden was unveiled in the school on 15th March.’ How to best commemorate history is a contentious issue at the moment - as seen in the recent ‘Rhodes Must Fall’ campaigns across the world. Questions surrounding how to accurately remember and appropriately acknowledge history’s feats, shortcomings, and outrages are sparking controversy globally, on a variety of topics. The 1916 Rising is undoubtedly part of these debates and one in which art has a significant role to play. Ciara believes ‘art can

be a very strong medium to provoke, surprise and educate people. Through the different mediums – music, theatre, visual art, design – it allows people to learn in unconventional spaces, such as the painting of a number of post boxes from green to red around Dublin city.’ Ciara praises Brigid O’Gorman and Sue Rainsford’s show, In the Flesh in the Lab, which brought the ‘viewer through the archive, offering very detailed and evocative descriptions of the objects.’ The objects from the 1916 Rising were from the National Museum of Decorative Arts in Collins Barracks, and were portrayed as an experience ‘through film and audio where Brigid and Sue bring the viewer through the archive’, as they could not use the physical objects from the museum. Many of which were owned and used by some of the leaders of the 1916 Rising. She believes they ‘highlighted the means of an object to tell a story’. Ciara is beginning a new art project with a primary school in Dublin where they will be exploring different Irish myths and legends. She is also preparing for her own show in the Ranelagh Arts Centre. The show is called Impressions Left and is inspired by her fascination with artefacts from the National History Museum, notably Bronze Age objects, due to her interest ‘in their stories, how they were preserved and valued and how their damage is all part of their story.’ Ciara specifically looks at the subtle geometric patterns carved onto the gold metal and has reinterpreted these on paper and fabric. The show opens on the 31st March. Shadowed Women: Ciara Harrison The Little Museum of Dublin: 15 St.Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2. Open: 9.30am-5pm (Thursdays 8pm) 7 days a week. Impressions Left: Ciara Harrison Ranelagh Arts Centre: 26 Ranelagh Main Street, Ranelagh, Dublin 6. (Opening March 31st 2016)

#ihavethisthingwith... Through Instagram, Karolina Badzmierowska explores the good, the bad and the ugly that often go unnoticed around her. Here she talks a stroll around Trinity College Dublin. ‘By putting myself at people’s feet, I can bring beauty up to their level which causes them to look down.’ Ralph G. Brancaccio Instagram is all about ‘pretty’ pictures. Yes, to a certain degree. For me Instagram does something more than just showing off the world filtered. It teaches (and helps) people to notice and appreciate the good, the bad and the ugly of our built heritage. By built heritage here I mean architecture most of all, but also random and ‘unimportant’ features of our daily neighbourhoods. The features we rarely notice in our busy lives as we don’t stop and look around as much anymore. But there is a growing number of people who do stop and look, and notice the unnoticed built heritage around. They record their daily finds on Instagram using a hashtag that starts with #ihavethisthingwith... I’m one of those people.

@trinitycollegedublin #trinitycollegedublin, #springintrinity, #artintrinity, #sportattrinity, #bikesintrinity, #sunsetattrinity Instagram: @karolinabadz Twitter: @karolinabadz Web: www.karolinabadz.com

#ihavethisthingwithﬂoors

#ihavethisthingwithwindows

The account @ihavethisthingwithfloors is curated from Amsterdam by Pien van Wijmen, Joshua Jansen & Edith Beurskens, and it became extremely popular among those who… look down. Over a half a million people out there enjoy looking at floors or simply started noticing what’s under their feet. You might notice a very interesting example of cobblewood as you walk through the Regent House, the marble geometric floor in the Museum building and the endless examples of old beautiful cobblestones in different colours and shapes.

Not as many people have this thing with windows as they have with doors, but the trend is growing. Its Dublin alter ego, @thewindowsofdublin, has just been born so watch this space. So has the hashtag #windowsoftrinity. There is a lot of beautiful and interesting windows in Trinity worth capturing, all you need to do is to look up.

#ihavethisthingwithdoors

#ihavethisthingwithwalls

And recently...

Over 26,000 people around the world have this thing with doors, including me. There is a Dublin project called ‘The doors of Dublin’ run, from Boston by the way, by an art historian and writer Eleanor Costello. While I might have this thing with doors #thedoorsofdublin, I certainly have it with the ones in Trinity. I created a hashtag, #doorsoftrinity, so next time you knock on the door have a look ﬁrst, take a picture and tag on Instagram.

You might think all walls are … just walls. But believe me, the minute you discover the variety of textures, colours, patterns and designs even just around Trinity, you will see what it is all about.

...I also have this thing with manhole covers. As weird as it sounds, there is a quite a number of images on Instagram tagged #manholecover, #manhole, #manholeunited, #manholecovers, etc. Dublin has its own Instagram account, @dublinmanholecovers, ﬁlled with Georgian, Victorian and modern manhole covers around the city.

PADDY JOE RICKARD +

Having recently won the Fingal Graduate Award in partnership with BLOCK T, the two artists share some of their motivations and work from their upcoming show, The Hike I Never Went On. While on residency in Block T, we have been working closely together for the upcoming exhibition. Through conversation and studio visits, it became clear that we both had extremely similar methods and modes of working. Our practices are supported by multiple reference points, ideas, and strong ties to art history, ﬁguration and abstraction, whilst still thriving on the joy of making objects and images in a crude and instinctual manner. The show is a culmination of problems and thoughts raised through a constant dialogue with one another. The sculptural works in the show will highlight these issues and inevitably submerge the viewer into the conversation, and somewhat disjointed narrative. The show is titled ‘The Hike I Never Went On’ and is supported by Block T.

Clockwise from top left: Detail from ‘TDF 2015’ 2016. Size variable, Plaster and Mixed Media, Detail from ‘Dead Moon’ 2016 approx. 130 x 35 cm. Plaster and Mixed Media and ‘Smog’ from Deep Fat Fried Fat, 2015 approx 35 x 30 cm, Carved Chalk.

Paddy Joe Rickard: I make sculptures and paintings that reference Art history, real and made up landscapes, trees, people, ﬁgures, objects, other artworks and other artists. The work stems from a process of breaking, remaking and recycling old - failed works or leftovers from around the studio. The works are often not about one thing and allude to a lot of diﬀerent representational or unrecognisable subject matter. The work lives somewhere between abstraction and reality, and is in constant change.

ALEX DE ROECK

Alex De Roeck: I think… My work creates dialogues and ideological infrastructures connection to the history of art, existentialism and the absurd. The work composes itself through methods of spontaneous and instinctual decision making, combining and creating makeshift solutions by shifting context and content to create new meanings and narratives. I want my work to blend the psychological and the physical in synchronisation while pulling from the formal language of traditional sculpture (pedestal , the standing ﬁgure) and the contractionary tactics associated with theatre (tragicomedy, bathos and pathos, costumes). Drawing from a number of aesthetic and theoretical references I attempt to create somewhat of a ﬁctional degeneracy. But I could be wrong…

Clockwise from top left: ’Boohoo Baby’ (2016), installation shot, ‘Bust’ (2016), shirt, heat transfer image, zerox prints, postcard, fake glasses, minions hat, modeling clay, hanger, 2 puma shoelaces, found badge. Dimensions variable and ‘Starry night stick (what is above me?)’ (2016), pen on paper, monoprint, postcard image, found keyring, sticker, modeling clay, chicken wire, cable ties, bluetack, metal, expanding foam, plastic spray paint.

Cliodhna Timoney Elisabeth Rochford speaks to Cliodhna Timoney, artist and member of the board of directors for 126 Gallery, an artist led gallery in Galway. Cliodhna is due to start a residency in Firestation Studios in May. Tell me a little about your own background in visual arts. The interest in art was always there from a young age and after finishing up secondary school it felt natural for me to do a foundation course in art and design in NWRC Limavady. I fell in love with it as it was the first time I put all my attention on it and I continued to IADT to study Visual Arts Practice. Entering into college I still didn’t believe that I would become a practicing artist as there is a pressure and a voice telling you it’s not stable or practical. I was convinced I would become a teacher or designer and I’m not writing those off, but the longer I was in college the more I realized I wanted to give being a professional artist a go. The last year two years of my undergrad were amazing and left me with an appetite and excitement to keep making and be around other makers, which brought me to Galway. How would you describe your own work? A mish-mash of sculpture, painting, colour and drawing. Drawing introduces spontaneity and chance into my practice. The objective is to keep these drawings provisional with a humorous quality. The drawings can be seen as an accumulation of data and information deriving from a variation of sources, for example the history of painting/pop culture. However, I endeavour to embody

this info through a language of gestural abstraction. Principally, the objects and sculptures are extensions of these drawings - allowing drawing to enrich the object and contrariwise. Gathering often overlooked materials, I attempt to translate the transitory nature of the drawings into a sculptural setting. Chancing failure and accidents I permit the materials to manifest themselves into tactile, haptic almost delectable objects. I want to create works that respond to flux without representing this. I try to attain tension between preciousness and garishness, resonating daintiness against the unfinished. I particularly aim to highlight the encounter between manufactured materials and the handmade creating a jarring quality within them. I cover the objects with gestural marks and strokes causing them to verge on the gaudy but only just. You are a board member for 126 Gallery. What is it and how did you get involved? 126 Artist Run Gallery is a non-profit organization based off the structure of Transmission Gallery in Glasgow and originally founded in a living room in 2005. 126 is supported annually by funding and the continued support of our 180 members. Our members pay a nominal fee to support us and this also allows them opportunities to apply for our residencies and open calls. The constitution we uphold in 126 states that

there is a rollover Board of Directors, so each board member can contribute up to two years and then they will be replaced with a fresh face! As one of our board members Lucy Elvis says ‘Well we don’t make any money. We do pay the artists, but we don’t pay ourselves. It somehow works because people are committed to the ideas’. Currently there are seven of us on the Board. It’s quite fast-paced and messy at times as everyone is contributing time out of their lives between work, family and studying but this is what makes it so wonderful and unique. I wouldn’t have pictured myself in Galway this time two years ago, but I stumbled upon an open call 126 had for new interns. I saw it as a support network outside of college and a gateway to understanding how a professional gallery space operates. The internship was 6 months with an opportunity at the end to curate an exhibition. It ﬁnished in January and I joined the Board of Directors in February 2016. I am currently the secretary but I also help out with a jumble of things like installation, PR, fundraising, and open calls. How important are artist led spaces? I can’t speak on behalf of other artist led spaces but here in 126 our priority is to support contemporary art that is not commercial - art that needs a professional platform that wouldn’t necessarily be exhibited in a commercial

ticulated how understandably significant these spaces are. Essentially the main values these spaces carry is the support for emerging artists, the innovative ways of curating and presenting work and the ability to establish effective networks between the local community and contemporary art. Artist led organizations reclaim a space for critical thinking, they highlight and invest in new artists that then provide the established intuitions with new talent and yet the only value they receive is a reputational one. The exhibiting artists receive a platform but not only that; the board members gain insight and experience into organisational support, teamwork and empowerment. And the spaces are signifiers of cultural diversity in the local communities. space, like site specific work or performance art. This art is invaluable as it is creates new discussions and discourses around society and art. This may not seem so different from other spaces initially but I believe there’s a gap in Ireland between graduates/emerging artists and established artists. 126 is an example of the in-between. We are the kind of space that may offer someone their first residency or their first solo show. That to me is super important. We try to recognize someone who needs a stage and provide that for them. Do you think there is a lack of platforms in Ireland for experimental arts? What role does 126 Gallery play in rectifying this? Absolutely. I love going up and down to Dublin because there is always some an event or show I can visit, but even then it’s in very established galleries like the Douglas Hyde, Kerlin or Project Arts. Some of the main artist led spaces in our capital were forced to close over the last few years and that’s a serious issue within the arts. 126 Gallery’s FOOTFALL report attempted to question how you might articulate the non-economic yet distinct value of what you do. Did you find any answers? The FOOTFALL report brought to light a lot of what we knew already, but ar-

FOOTFALL is the diﬃculty when key policy makers don’t engage in the conversation around artist-led spaces. The report led to some great self-understanding for 126 and the spaces they collaborated with for the research, but the non-attendance by local and national policy makers means progress is in a sense limited. The positive result of the report demonstrates that we must acknowledge artist led spaces as part of the arts sector, that we must defend ourselves from funding cuts and that these spaces showcase a legitimate occupation of professional artists. Your residency in Firestation Studios starts in May. What do you hope to get out of the experience? During my time in college I was primarily in the painting department and slowly branched into working with other materials. This all manifested into a more 3D practice. Unfortunately I didn’t get the opportunity to work in ceramics before I left and I am eager to get back into a workshop and gain some positive conclusions in my practice. Up until now I have worked mainly in foam, styrofoam, wood, plastics and various other materials but for some time now I have hoped to make ceramics. I believe clay/glasses will garner the right medium between sculpture and painting that I am trying to achieve.

DUPA END OF YEAR EXHIBITION

The Dublin University Photographic Association’s annual end of year exhibition showcases some of the best photography Trinity College Dublin students have to oﬀer. Here is a small selection of the amazing work displayed this year.

Chloe Eddleston - The Guru “My dad gave me one solitary piece of travel advice before I went to India: take pictures of people, not places. With this in mind, I walked up to countless strangers, armed only with the international sign language for ‘can I take your picture?’. The response was overly positive, and led to countless encounters, with people from all walks of life. As the memories of my trip begin to fade, I vividly recall each of these interactions and look back on them fondly“.

Philip Schuler - The Labyrinth, Beirut Philip is a doctoral researcher in the ﬁeld of hydrogeology at Trinity College. His exhibited photographs were taken during a period of three years when Philip lived and worked in the Middle East. Besides his passion about environmental science, it is the life in urban spaces that fascinates him. For Philip, being equipped with a camera in hand oﬀers an additional point of view to perceive the surrounding and discover details, such as overwhelmingly bubbly and striking cities like Beirut.

Gearóid Gibbs - Rossbeigh, Kerry #1 Gearóid is a Senior Sophister Economics student. He has a long held passion for landscape photography and in his exhibited portfolio he presents a coastal set of images made at Rossbeigh beach in County Kerry. Monochrome images help contrast the overcast skies with the rugged coastal frontiers.

Tomasz Szykulski - Yosemite National Park, California “My name is Tomasz Szykulski and I’m a freelance photographer with 4 years of professional experience. I’m also an editor at a Polish tech magazine (iMagazine.pl) and the co-founder of a travel startup. Travelling is a very important part of my life; I ﬂy whenever I can and try to visit as many places as possible. All my exhibited photos were taken during a recent winter trip to the United States.“

Gabriele Pierantoni - Sorrow Gabriele Pierantoni has been interested in photography for almost 30 years; his love for photography was born with that for travelling and for the vast variety of people and landscapes that populate this planet. Gabriele has searched for this richness across diﬀerent countries where he tried to observe the relationships between people and their surroundings. His portfolio exhibited at the End of Year Exhibition, named People and Geometries, focuses on the relationships, explicit or implicit, conscious and not-conscious, among the observer, the subjects and the geometries that surround them.

The Moth Aislinn Irvine looks at The Moth, a quarterly Irish contemporary arts and literature magazine which has attained international acclaim. The Moth, designed and produced in a private art studio in a farmhouse in Cavan, brings together a host of established and up-and-coming writers, poets, and artists under one unique and beautifully presented arts magazine. It is a compilation of previously unpublished poetry, short stories, and visual artwork from local and international artists alike. Everything about the magazine is modern and ‘chic’, from its matte-ﬁnish cover to its minimalist design, not to mention the wealth of contemporary wordworks and artworks that stock its structured pages from cover to cover. Set up by editors Rebecca O’Connor and Will Govan in June 2010, when the married pair decided to pool their existing professional literary and artistic talent and skills together to produce ‘Ireland’s newest, and coolest, poetry magazine’, The Moth has published a new issue every Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter since then. Speaking to The Irish Times they said, ‘an idea evolved to produce a magazine that would feature the things we like ... It was going to be an artefact that people could pick up and enjoy’. Both editors bring something diﬀerent to the production. O’Connor had a background in literature as a published poet and former commissioning editor. She draws these skills together to manage the selection, editing, design and production of the magazine every three months. Gavan, on the other hand, gained expertise in the advertising side of things through his previous work in trade publication, as well as his studies at art college. He is the entrepreneur behind the business. Gavan is in charge of the interviews in each issue, having met with such writers as Roddy Doyle, Irvine Welsh, and Billy Collins. Remarkably, O’Connor receives over four hundred submissions per month to their studio in Cavan. These pieces are judged on the ‘quality and integrity of the writing’. In an attempt to pinpoint exactly what it is that she is looking for she told The Irish Times, ‘it’s got to feel real and convincing as a piece of writing, whether it’s moving or funny, or whatever it is’. The Moth is universal, both in its content and its readership; it draws the reader in with its beautiful, simplistic presentation. It is not just a magazine, but a work of art.

The Moth can be subscribed to annually for €24 at www.themothmagazine.ie or purchased at The Winding Stair and The Rathgar Bookshop.

The function of a traditional self-portrait painting is to depict the character of the sitter and to promote and/or preserve their image, essentially to immortalise themselves. The development of modern technology has lead to the majority of people in the Western world owning a smartphone. This in turn has led to the development of the selfie. If one looks at the function of the selfie, it is very similar to that of a self-portrait. Is it not conceivable therefore to argue that selfies are a growing artform.

ARE SELFIES THE MODERN DAY SELF-PORTRAIT? Tilly Dunne investigates.

The Chinese activist and artist Ai Weiwei was

Left: OSCAR SELFIE, 2014. Below: SELFIE UNDER ARREST, AI WEIWEI, 2009.

one of the first prominent contemporary artists to use a selfie as another medium in his oeuvre. During his illegal arrest in 2011, by the Chinese government he took a selfie of himself being taken away. Weiwei has used many different mediums to express his views on the corruptness of the Chinese Government and by adding the selfie to his impressive oeuvre, is he justifying this innovative, exciting new art form as an art form in its own right? Over the last century the whole understanding and meaning of what art is has completely changed. Art of the 1970s proved that artists (like Yves Klein) don’t even need to put paintbrush to canvas, so why can’t the artist now be everyone and the subject be themselves and the material be a camera phone?