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Visual Artists' News Sheet | January – February 2021
Regional Focus
A Time for Painting
Mermaid Arts Centre
Mary A. Kelly Visual Artist
Megan Robinson Gallery Coordinator
FOR MANY YEARS, my tools for exploring life
were largely lens-based. In a previous photographic and video series, titled ‘The Landing’ (2003), I was fascinated by the print or stamp each man made on his room in Portlaoise Prison. In asylum (2005), I hunted for marks left by patients on their space as a survival instinct. They represented a lifetime of subtle collection and placement. In Pillars (2007), I recorded the graffiti, etched onto port-a-loo doors by workers on construction sites. In Father & Child (2009), I documented the tattoos of children’s names and faces on their father’s bodies. In I Believe – Help my Unbelief (2010), I recorded the baby grave arrangements, lovingly created by parents in the Angels’ Plot of Glasnevin Cemetery. Now I wish to leave my own mark directly and so I returned to painting. There is a time for everything. The interests for my most recent body of work – titled ‘Chair’ – started many years ago. While taking part in a group psychotherapy process, the simplicity of the room and the depth of life experienced in that space led me to explore many similar rooms. Eventually my focus became the chair, as an entity in its own right – as a witness to life. The exploration extended to chairs beyond the psychotherapeutic rooms into other living rooms. The intimate formal space of the psychotherapeutic experience opens out into broader domestic spaces and hence, into life itself. Eventually the paintbrush took the place of the camera. I returned to my first love. As an artist, there is perpetual doubt about what I am doing, how and why. These paintings, after all, are an imitation of life and not the real thing – not even urinal status, to give Duchamp his due. Eventually, it is merely a nod to itself. The titles can distract, negate, illuminate or illustrate. Everything is there and nothing is there. And yet, the need to stretch out the hand, create the mark, express the thing, comes back time and time again. Over the last few years, there has been an increasing anxiety about global warming and
the possible extinction of our planet, as well as growing concern about the corruption of values and authenticity, in a world pushed by greed and power. Along comes COVID-19 to confound our hubris, which has stopped us all in our tracks. It’s a reminder, ultimately, that nature has the upper hand. Initially I was shocked and full of fear. I packed an overnight bag for the hospital, just in case, and typed out my passwords and instructions for my children. The first lockdown was almost a relief. I shrank my world to the simple routines that I have followed ever since. I am very lucky to live near the sea in Greystones and the mountains are also close by. I have discovered old Mass paths and right of ways behind housing estates leading to fields and woods. I swim in the sea every day, as I have done for the past few years. I look out for my mother who lives nearby. Along the way, I chat to the many people I know in my community. For once, we are all here in the same situation. I know this will all take time to process. I do not feel the urge to rush out and make work about it. However, in a strange way, as an artist, I am enjoying this ‘time out of time’, just to work away in the attic of my house, unfettered. During 2019, I had three exhibitions in Ireland, funded by the Arts Council’s Touring and Dissemination of Work Scheme. I also received an award at the RHA Annual Exhibition from the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI) in conjunction with the Irish Times. Part of that award was a commission for the RCSI, which I completed during the pandemic. The culmination of the ‘Chair’ touring exhibition was a solo show at Galerie Voss, Dusseldorf, Germany (13 March – 12 May 2020). As has been the experience of many artists over the last year, COVID-19 sabotaged the event with an openclose, open-close sequence. Most art fairs at this time also had to close. So, I bide my time in the attic, absorb all the change around us and wait. marykelly.website
Mary A. Kelly, Against a sky so sheer, a single bird would rip it like silk, oil on canvas; courtesy of the artist
Dorje de Burgh, ‘Dream the End’, installation view, Mermaid Arts Centre; photograph courtesy of the artist
MERMAID ARTS CENTRE is a multidisciplinary
arts centre, located in Bray, County Wicklow. We are a creative hub and artistic resource for County Wicklow, creating opportunities for regional audiences to enjoy high-quality national and international art spanning all art forms, including film, dance, theatre, comedy, literature, music, storytelling and visual arts. We have a 242-seater theatre, a contemporary bright gallery space and are home to the Betelnut Café. It is a busy space; in 2019 we presented 366 events and supported 176 artists in the development of new work. Mermaid presents approximately eight visual arts exhibitions every year with an accompanying programme of screenings and events. We started 2020 with the continuation of ‘Dream the End’, an exhibition by Dorje de Burgh. This photographic and film exhibition ran until 1 February 2020. We were delighted to welcome photography students from IADT, Dún Laoghaire to Mermaid for a talk with de Burgh during this exhibition. On Friday 14 February 2020 we presented an exhibition of paintings by Susan Montgomery and continued this show when we reopened, from 20 July – 1 August, following the initial COVID-19 lockdown. We are committed to ensuring that Mermaid exists as a place for creation, discussion and creating connections. In January, Outpost Studios hosted a Creative Salon – an evening to discuss ideas, work and artistic practices. Following a month-long residency in Mermaid, artists Eleanor Phillips and Emma Finucane presented their findings on the cultural and artistic health of Bray. During this residency, Phillips and Finucane explored and activated ideas that mapped the creativity of Bray. In October 2020, we held our first live streamed artists’ talk with artists Melissa O’Faherty, Emma Roche, Joanne Boyle, Chanelle Walshe and Sinéad Ní Mhaonaigh, as part of Ní Mhaonaigh’s exhibition ‘Macalla’, which ran from 14 August – 10 October. These five artists presented and discussed their artistic practices and the medium of paint to an audience in our theatre and online. As part of our Yarn Storytelling Festival we presented an exhibition titled ‘Portraits & Poet-
ry: Wicklow’s Young People Reflect on Special Things and People they Missed During Lockdown’. Last spring, we invited children from all over Wicklow to submit poems and portraits of their grandparents who they may have been missing during lockdown. With over 140 submissions, we finished the installation of this exhibition on the day we went into Level 5 restrictions in November 2020. In response to this we shifted the exhibition online to a digital gallery and filmed a tour of the exhibition, which can be viewed on our website. Over the past few months we have been working hard to put comprehensive measures in place to ensure a safe and comfortable experience for our audiences and artists. We continue and consistently monitor Government Guidelines for developments and will implement any changes in our own protocols as required. Despite our doors being shut during Level 5 lockdown, we presented a number of live-streamed events, Zoom events, prerecorded events, workshops and arthouse cinema screenings. In November 2020, Mermaid commissioned five artists to create artworks for postcards. We are delighted to be working with Liing Heaney, Joanna Kidney and Michael Geddis, Brigid O’Brien and Alan Clarke. These postcards will be distributed to houses across Wicklow, reaching out to our audiences and sparking positivity. We aim to provide an artist-centred approach and curatorial support for emerging and established artists working towards exhibitions and projects in Mermaid. Our visual arts programme in 2021 will continue to showcase and celebrate Wicklow and Irish artists. We look forward to a full and exciting year with artists Ann Maria Healy, Joanna Kidney and Michael Geddis, Signal Arts Centre, Laura Kelly, Joan Davis, Joe Wilson, Dan Kennedy and Brigid O’Brien. We look forward to welcoming audiences and artists back to Mermaid in 2021.
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