Regional Focus on Limerick

Regional Focus

County Limerick

Self-Imposed Parameters

Seán Guinan

Artist and Director of WickhamStreet Studios

I HAVE BEEN LIVING in Limerick since 2003, when I moved from Athlone to attend Limerick School of Art and Design. Since its inception in 2009, I have based my painting practice in Wickham Street Studios, and I am also the studio’s director. In the couple of years after Wickham Street Studios opened, Limerick’s art scene really began to take off, with several artist-run galleries and studios being set up in the city, including Occupy Space, which was established by Wickham Street members. A lot of my peers from art college remained in Limerick after graduation, so it felt like a natural progression and a good place to establish my practice. Wickham Street Studios is very active at the moment and there’s a good buzz around the place. This provides a sense of pace and offers a source of feedback. I tend to do my best work at night when the studio is quieter. Economically, Limerick is a good city to live in, and studios are relatively affordable, however, it has become increasingly difficult for artists in recent years. Spiralling rents and living costs mean that many artists are having to seek out additional sources of income and there are now fewer workspaces available around the city, or galleries in which to exhibit.

My practice has undergone a number of changes in recent years, and I am in the early stages of another transformation. Although still very intuitive, my painting process now requires more conscious choices. Shifts in perspective, colour gradients and symmetry, together with a flat use of paint, are among the characteristics that distinguish my current body of painting from previous work. The process is more protracted now, beginning with a drawing on wood,

followed by a slower application of oil paint throughout. Parameters are more pronounced, many of them self-imposed – something I find oddly liberating, even necessary. These parameters include scale, support, orientation, paint-handling and the use of recurrent motifs. Landscape is taken as a point of departure from which to implement a more representational approach, whilst making room for abstract, painterly games. There is a loose-knit, otherworldly narrative at play, with a variety of ambiguous elements merging to form surreal, dream like scenes. A line drawing is laid down without much deliberation and becomes a platform for the rest of the painting to evolve. Colour is initially dictated by instinct, but it becomes more challenging to resolve as the painting edges closer to completion.

Over the past few years, my more gestural work has involved a multi-layered approach. It often used to take months, or even years, to resolve a finished piece. Layers of oil paint were applied thickly and took months to dry, making this methodology inconvenient in many respects. I find that my current approach is more practical. The paint is applied thinly, often in one layer, so it doesn’t require a lot of drying time. In addition, the small scale of the work makes it easier to prepare, transport and store. Furthermore, the reduced scale allows me the option of having a larger number of paintings in my visual field at any one time, which is more conducive to identifying relationships and patterns as they emerge. My studio space used to be quite chaotic, with paintings strewn everywhere, but I have since built a partition to create a storage area, meaning my working space is now more minimal and less cluttered. I feel this has positively impacted my work. Sometimes what one might perceive as practical restrictions upon the work, can turn out to be a blessing in disguise. At the moment, I am satisfied with my current methodologies and I am increasingly curious to see how my practice develops over the coming years.

seanguinan.com

Big City?

Gerry Davis

Painter and winner of the Hennessy Portrait Prize 2016

IT’S NOW CLOSE TO nine years since I graduated from the Limerick School of Art and Design. If you could talk to 24-year-old me and tell him about the path my career as a painter was about to take, I would be both delighted and dismayed, depending on what was being considered. Dismayed perhaps with the failure (as of yet) to realise the unreasonable dreams: New York City opening nights, breaking records at Sothebys, invitations to biennales, effortless success and endless, hangover-free parties. But on the other hand, I would be proud of things that actually did happen: sticking with priorities, continuing to make work and – in this way – achieving a story that I would be happy to accept, both then and now.

One of the things that would probably surprise 24-year-old me – and one of the things that helped me continue making work – was the fact that I’m still in the city I graduated from. Contrary to popular belief, I don’t think it’s necessary to move to an ‘art capital’ to make it as an artist these days. Often this can actually be detrimental, with the cost of living in large cities, the necessity of part-time work, and smaller or more expensive studios, all being obvious drawbacks. However, I don’t think that working in complete isolation from the art world would have been good for me either. It’s good to know what’s going on and the social aspect of an art scene can be important. In these ways, Limerick ended up being perfect. It had affordable studio space and a well-informed art community who function as the perfect microcosm for things going on internationally.

When I graduated in 2009, the economic recession was in full swing, which made it difficult to make an income from selling work. But as is often the case, economic downturns can sometimes be beneficial to the arts. The ‘Creative Limerick’ initiative, which allowed artists to occupy empty shop units, led to a proliferation of artist-run galleries and studios around the city, such as Occupy Space, Ormston House, Faber

Studios and Raggle Taggle. As a result, many students continued living in Limerick after they graduated and this strengthened the art scene for years to come, despite many of these new spaces dwindling as the economy improved.

In my case, I was lucky enough to become a member of Wickham Street Studios just as it began in April 2009. This was a good setup. I was able to continue working alongside my peers as I had done in college and it allowed me to forge connections with new graduates as the years went on. The studio’s group shows, and its connection to Occupy Space (which was also started by Wickham Street members), meant we all gained valuable experience exhibiting work, meeting curators and hosting studio visits.

In 2015, the significance of my time in Wickham Street became more apparent, leading to my ‘Studio Space’ series of paintings, which depict the various nooks and crannies of the Wickham Street building and the variety of studio spaces within it. They were snapshots of a place that is always in transition and the subject matter felt endless. Around this time, I was also lucky enough to win the Hennessy Portrait Prize 2016, which helped my career even further. I felt that I had achieved something significant by making those paintings, and the temptation to continue with the series was strong. But after two years and two solo shows in Pallas Projects/ Studios, Dublin, and in Source Arts Centre, Thurles, my practice is going in new directions again and I’m reminding myself of the excitement that comes from a fresh start. As I move on to new projects, Wickham Street Studios and Limerick continue to provide the ideal environment from which to progress, whatever new forms the work might take.

gerrydavis.net

Negotiating the Function of ArtCelebrating Artists

Sean Lynch and Michele Horrigan

Co-Curators at Askeaton Contemporary Arts

ASKEATON CONTEMPORARY ARTS was established in 2006 in a small town in west Limerick. We are an artist-led initiative and organise residencies and exhibitions that often take the daily life of the town and region as a thematic. We do not have a permanent exhibition space – any project made here has to find ways to exist in the public realm. We have facilitated artists from around the world to realise projects in places such as a hair salon, petrol station and seventeenth century Hellfire Club, amongst many others. Over the years, this impetus has developed into the production of publications and the use of established platforms to expose artists to an international audience.

A large part of our interests are the social constructs artists can inhabit and influence. In Limerick in recent years, these constructs have primarily been focused on ideas of regeneration and ‘City of Culture’ initiatives. From our perspective, it is useful to discover or keep alive paradigms outside of the generic branding of the creative industries – places and people are inevitably more complicated than marketing campaigns might suggest.

Sean Keating, the famous painter of Free State Ireland, is a good example. Despite being awarded the Freedom of Limerick in 1948, he went on to describe the region as a “medieval dung heap” on RTÉ television in 1971. Keating’s impressions were formed over a prolonged period (he didn’t leave to settle in Dublin until he was 33 years old), and were very much in conflict with his portrayal as the great social painter, grounded in ventures such as the Ardnacrushna Hydroelectric Scheme. In 2017, we published Liz Ryan’s book Under Starry Skies that touched on an almost-unknown school of vernacular painting in Limerick. The main protagonist, Bobby Duhig, had one exhibition in his life, inside the foyer of the O’Connell Street’s Ulster Bank. While Keating painted the utopianism of the dam upstream on the River Shannon, Duhig and his friends made paintings of violent battles between soldiers and displaced fishermen a few miles away.

Last July in Askeaton, Tina O’Connell and Neal White further questioned Keating’s identity,

digitally remaking his now-destroyed 1939 mural for the World Fair in New York and installing it underneath the stage of Askeaton’s Community Hall. This gesture suggested that Keating might be a subconscious entity, hiding in wait in the shadows, to be encountered as we collectively negotiate what art can do in this region.

In our 2018 programme, we will collaborate with Lismore Castle Arts in Waterford. We both share interests in how the wider Munster region’s environment and culture is perceived. We have introduced established international artists, such as Olivia Plender from Stockholm, Stuart Whipps from Birmingham and the Centre for Land Use Interpretation in Los Angeles, to further this enquiry. Following much exploring over the last two years, the group exhibition, ‘The Expanded Field’, will be presented at Lismore in July.

Our summer residency programme, ‘Welcome to the Neighbourhood’, runs from 16 – 28 July, with five artists living and working in Askeaton accompanied by public tours, screenings, talks and more. In addition, Limerick artist Carl Doran is in residence at Askeaton’s ruined twelfth-century castle, working with OPW staff who have been actively conserving the site over the last decade.

In 2018, we have an additional emphasis on publication. An expended resource book generated through Filip Van Dingenen’s Algae Summit – a pan-European symposium on the subject of seaweed, held last summer on Coney Island’s Shannon Estuary – will soon be launched. Columbian curator Catalina Lozano is a frequent visitor here, and her new book, The Cure, features modern accounts of shamanic healing, ghosts and stolen rhino horns. Deirdre O’Mahony takes on the role of a private investigator in her forthcoming artist’s book, which tracks down a painting she sold to the now defunct Shannon Development Agency, a quango whose policies dreamed of industrialising the Shannon into the Irish version of the Rhine-Ruhr valley.

askeatonarts.com

Úna McCarthy

Director, Limerick City Gallery of Art

Bernadette Cotter, Edge of Absence, 2018, performance; image courtesy of Limerick City Gallery of Art

LIMERICK CITY GALLERY OF ART (LCGA) is Limerick’s premier visual arts space and is recognised as one of the most significant galleries in Ireland. It has a distinguished track record of serving the region through a programme of national and international exhibitions and is at the forefront of supporting visual artists at all stages of their careers. Occupying a site adjacent to The People’s Park in the Georgian Quarter of the city, LCGA was unveiled in its current guise in 1985 when the City Library and Museum moved out of the then designated Carnegie Building. In a bold decision, Limerick City Council (LCC) dedicated the entire building to the presentation of contemporary visual art and their Permanent Collection. LCGA is also a key partner to the critically acclaimed EVA International, which takes place every two years.

LCGA is funded by LCC and the Arts Council and aims to provide an innovative exhibition programme, which offers regional, national and international artists the opportunity to experiment, develop and exhibit their work. The gallery also aims to acquire, conserve and exhibit the Permanent Collection for the purposes of education and public enjoyment, thus enabling participation and stimulating cultural experiences for local communities and visitors. These objectives are further supported through free access to exhibitions and events, as well as the exploration of new audiences and artistic approaches.

LCGA also develops partnerships with other organisations to achieve common goals. We are proud of our close connections with other cultural institutions and programmers in Limerick, including Limerick School of Art and Design, University of Limerick, the Irish Chamber Orchestra and Dance Limerick. Nationally, LCGA also works closely with Bealtaine – an annual festival celebrating art and older people.

The 2018 programme opened on 25 January with ‘Repair’, a survey exhibition of work by Bernadette Cotter. Cotter’s formidable and fearless practice is rooted in her use of materials. The

eponymous new piece was made specifically for LCGA. A roundtable discussion of Cotter’s work will take place on Thursday 22 March with Alice Maher, Dr Austin McQuinn and the artist to coincide with the launch of a catalogue, including essays by McQuinn and the writer Sara Baume.

Running concurrently is the exhibition ‘Known Unknowns’, curated by the 2015 – 17 Shinnors Scholar, Simon Corcoran, as part of his research MA in Curatorial Studies. The exhibition reflects on 80 years of the Permanent Collection, with new response-based works by Damien Flood, Nuala O’Sullivan and Daniel Greaney. The exhibition merges the old and new, the known and the unknown, to forge new relationships and narratives which connect the artists’ distinct practices to the collection. EVA International will also play a central role in our 2018 programme. The biennial exhibition, curated by Inti Guerrero, will run from 14 April to 8 July and will include 56 Irish and international visual artists. During the summer, an exhibition of new work by Gabhann Dunne will deal with ownership of the environment in Ireland. Rather than using a polemical tone, Dunne highlights our disconnect from the environment in understated ways, leaving no doubt about the situation we find ourselves in during the first half of this century.

LCGA is delighted to include Maud Cotter, one of the leading artists of her generation, in our autumn programme. LCGA has worked closely with Cotter to develop a substantial body of new work that will have its first manifestation at LCGA, before travelling to The Dock, Carrick-on-Shannon and Dublin City Gallery: The Hugh Lane in 2019. An exhibition by the Dutchborn and Dublin-based artist, Anita Groener, will also open in the autumn. ‘Citizen’ is a multimedia exhibition of drawings, video and silhouette installations exploring collective alienation amidst the current global refugee crisis.

gallery.limerick.ie

Supporting Arts & Culture

Sheila Deegan

Arts and Culture Officer at Limerick City and County Council

County Limerick Youth Theatre

THE LIMERICK ARTS OFFICE was established in 1988 and has been supporting and promoting arts and culture in Limerick for 30 years and is now at a key point in its cultural history and development. Since Limerick’s time as Ireland’s first City of Culture in 2014, it has been renamed as the Limerick Culture and Arts Office (LCAO). We currently provide a wide range of arts and cultural opportunities through strategic supports for individual practitioners, cultural organisations, communities and groups organising and engaging in arts activities aligned to local, national and international strategies.

A new role for LCAO is the delivery of five civic festivals and events across departments in Limerick City and County Council (LCC). Support for youth arts practice includes the delivery of Artist in Schools programmes, support for various festivals (such as Fresh Film Festival) and individual bursaries for young people to attend important professional development opportunities. This brings a strong educational dynamic that allows younger audiences to participate in and learn through the arts. Opportunities and supports to individual artists are provided in the form of residencies, travel bursaries, artists’ studios and accommodation. We are extremely proud of the artists' apartments in John’s Square, Limerick, which form part of the city’s living cultural quarter.

The Limerick Cultural Strategy (2016 – 2030) was adopted by LCC in 2016. The strategy aims to develop Limerick’s artistic capabilities by attracting and retaining cultural practitioners to live and work in Limerick. Importantly, we work to develop resources necessary for staging largescale performances, festivals and productions and to grow and support innovative and creative collectives. A number of open call grant schemes for financial support have been developed to deliver these objectives and are currently open for applications. The Limerick Cultural Strategy also strives to place culture and the arts at the heart of the economic and social regeneration in Limerick. An example of this is the development of Troy Studios, as a significant media hub for television and film production in Limerick.

Aligning to the Creative Ireland plan to “enable creativity in every community”, the Limerick Culture and Creativity Plan was published in 2017. This plan supported 18 projects in the city and county through the Creative Ireland funding, including ‘Walking Limerick – Luimneach ag Siúl’, free walking tours as part of Limerick’s Cruinniú na Cásca event on Easter Monday. At a European level, we are partnering with Walk the Plank to deliver the ‘European School of Spectacle’, which is funded by Creative Europe. This project is part of a wider initiative that brought together local and international creative practitioners, trained in outdoor arts, for night-time events in Limerick over eight days. Last November the trainees showcased their new knowledge and skills by putting together a ‘scratch’ performance, titled Glean Áine Alight, on the grounds of the Herbertstown GAA Club, with the community of Hospital – a small town in east County Limerick. Over 400 people from the locality attended and were transfixed by the aerial performances, fire drawings and children’s parade.

The Autonomy Project is a collaboration between multiple partners designed by LCAO, LCC and artist Lisa McLoughlin and funded through the Arts Council’s Invitation to Collaboration scheme. The project aims to promote engagement with the arts, focusing on a global resurgence in youth activism and providing a platform for the young people of Limerick to explore a wide range of issues through art and culture, including identity, gender and social justice. Phase one of The Autonomy Project will be delivered as part of Limerick Fringe 2018, and an international symposium will take place in the University of Limerick in April 2018.

Public support for culture is widely evident across Limerick city and county, as are the economic, social and cultural benefits. The projects discussed here manifest, in some way or another, the underlying ethos of LCAO’s work, which is to foster imagination, innovation, creativity and integration, allowing citizens and visitors to experience the uniqueness and beauty of Limerick.

limerick.ie