sculptor, Kevin Francis Gray

Kaleidoscopic Vision

GWEN BURLINGTON DISCUSSES THE WORK OF ARTIST AOIFE DUNNE.

THE WALL AND floor of the cube space in The LAB Gallery in Dublin are layered in a myriad of pigment and shapes that collide and interject like a computer-generated jigsaw. Black and white stripes, metallic sheens and checkered patterns move forwards and away in a distortion of perspective – an explosive amalgamation of polychromatic digital imagery, cut-up and cropped together. Four of the floor-to-ceiling windows are covered in a film that passes imperceptibly from red at the top, to green at the bottom. Rows of neon purple, blue, green, pink and yellow LED lights hang from the ceiling, tapering downwards and filling the space in a Day Glo-infused light. There is a sonic element of digitally produced sounds (generated from found objects) that sounds oddly like futuristic elevator music; comforting and unexpected. Collectively the various clashing elements result in an overwhelming feeling, with the eye darting everywhere, overloaded with colour and shapes. This is 7thSense (2020), the type of installation that Dublin-born artist, Aoife Dunne, has come to be known for – an oversaturated, multisensory, immersive experience.

Working across set design, fashion, video, costume, sculpture, installation and performance, her work speaks to a riotous otherworldliness, similar to artists such as Rachel Maclean, Tim Walker or Shona Heath; however she has created a lexicon of interactive multimedia that is emphatically all her own. Her work exudes an exuberance for the erratic – a theme that echoes across her dextrous multimedia oeuvre, which is substantial, even at the age of 25. Her digital installations can feel like staring down a gleaming prismatic wormhole, a departure from the typically subdued white cube. In her video work, Dunne creates computer-generated landscapes that blend narrative, tone and perspective into incandescent hallucinations that seem to vibrate pigment, and glow like neon-tinged phosphenes. Appropriating voices from online videos, the internet, and coercive electronic prompts, Dunne deftly constructs super-saturated, cinematic alter-worlds, populated by avatars that viewers can, at times, interact with.

Dunne could be considered to be on the ideal trajectory of an emerging contemporary artist: her degree show, ‘LIMITLESS’, at NCAD was picked up by the Royal Academy of Art in London and exhibited at the RA Lates event, ‘The Summer Circus’, in July 2016. After this, it travelled to the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver (MCA Denver), as part of the group exhibition ‘Bodaciousss’, curated by Taylor Balkissoon, rubbing shoulders with heavyweight, established artists such as Dara Birnbaum and Keith Haring. Since then, her work has continued to be exhibited internationally including in New York, Paris and Puerto Rico. Yet it is only recently that her work has begun to be recognised in Ireland, with the artist exhibiting here for the first time in 2019.

Dunne’s varying levels of success to date highlight the precariousness intrinsic to the careers of contemporary artists, particularly within an Irish context. Exhibiting with the RA every year since 2016, she was part of a programme of artists giving talks during the Antony Gormley exhibition in 2019. Dunne recalls: “The day I gave that artist talk, I had applied for a studio in Dublin and found out I didn’t get it. I thought, why am I at the RA, giving an artist talk about my career at this prestigious gallery, when I can’t even get a studio in Dublin.”

Indeed, her work has since gained traction in Ireland, with three exhibition projects in 2020, including: 7thSense, her installation at The LAB Gallery; Genesis, an interactive digital experience launched on Culture Night; and Transcending Time (2020), a moving digital installation, presented by Fingal County Council Public Art Programme. Like all artists during lockdown, Dunne had to adapt to safe working conditions, inventing alternative modes of dissemination with most of her projects cancelled. The most innovative response to these circumstances was Transcending Time. Inspired by an advertising van that drove past when Dunne was out walking, it comprised of a digital screen on the back of a van that travelled around the Fingal area during lockdown in spring 2020. The artist designed a digital print to wrap around the front of the vehicle and presented the digital moving elements on a rotatable screen. She also created a website where people could input their address, summoning the van to drive by their house. Here, we see how Dunne subverts the flatness inherent to viewing art online by drawing out the digital realm into that of the real.

Dunne’s practice inhabits an interesting cross-section between fine art and commerce – two worlds that are definitively delineated yet inextricably linked. With a slick editorial edge that lends well to high-end fashion and interior design worlds, Dunne’s client portfolio includes magazines such as Dazed and Confused and Glassbook, as well as multinational corporations such as PayPal, Facebook and Google. Yet, surprisingly, working for commercial enterprises doesn’t compromise her artistic autonomy, with clients allowing her ‘free creative control’ to do what she wants. Working with these partners allows her projects to scale up, reaching new audiences outside of gallery spaces and bolstering her working budget. Working in large-scale installation, generous budgets are needed. Over Zoom, from her home during lockdown, Dunne tells me how she had to decline an offer to exhibit at IMMA when they approached her, because they offered a minuscule materials budget and no artist’s fee. “I had to say no because I didn’t have my own money to put into it.”

Site-specificity is integral to her practice, often making work in response to the context in which it will be shown. It is perhaps because her work often speaks to a direct bodily experience within a space, that it may seem at odds with the theory-based or hyper-politically engaged art practices that have become the backbone of contemporary Irish art discourse. Dunne firmly believes in the “psychedelic potential of art” to transport us from the mundane. Donning self-designed costumes, the artist continually transforms herself into a hyper-real, glitchy manifestation of futuristic and imagined worlds. Dealing with issues of identity and social life, Dunne’s kaleidoscopic visions play out a sharp critique of contemporary culture that is often playful, dizzying and dream-like.

Aoife Dunne, Trancending Time, 2020, video still, courtesy of the artist