2016 02 March/April

Victoria J. Dean, Niamh O’Doherty and Laura Smith Galway Arts Centre, 22 January – 26 February 2016 Boundaries and partitions are staple themes in Irish cultural production. Over the last 100 years the Irish have struggled with the realities of a physical border, alongside metaphysical, social and political divisions. In this centenary year, such themes convey the complexities of our national identity. The three artists in this exhibition all explore aspects of what borders mean in relation to the passage of time.

David Lunney, Eight Gallery, Dublin, 29 January–7 February 2016 Eight Gallery is housed in a large room on the first floor of a Georgian mansion on Dawson Street. Natural light enters through the grimy panes of three tall sash windows overlooking the street. A redundant chandelier shines weakly from the ceiling rose. Things Made for Drawing is a small, formally cohesive show, its eight works placed sparingly around the jaded but elegant room. There are six wall works in two sets of three, their titles, Three Rock and Kilmashogue, referring to well-known locations in the Dublin Mountains. Each of these sets has a causal connection to one of the two remaining…

Bridget O’Gorman, The LAB, Dublin, 29 January–12 March 2016 In 2015 Bridget O’Gorman was invited to respond, in collaboration with research partners and institutions, to the 1916 Rising in its centennial year. So began 12 months of site visits with historian Brenda Malone at the National Museum of Ireland at Collins Barracks and a collaboration with writer Sue Rainsford. O’Gorman’s response is the first in a series of such exhibitions commissioned by The LAB, a gallery which regularly facilitates cross-disciplinary collaborations.

Sean Lynch, LCGA, 21 January–24 March 2015 “Man was born naked, without claws, unable to run fast, with no shell or natural armour. But he could observe nature and imitate it. He saw how water ran down the side of a hill without sinking, and then invented a roof for his house. Soon more houses and villages appeared, and more stones were needed. Mighty tools and machines were invented. Demand increased. My chisel got harder, my hammer heavier. Villages turned into towns…towns into cities…stone…rock…next stone…next rock.” Sean Lynch, script excerpt from ‘Adventure: Capital’ Lynch’s project ‘Adventure: Capital’ traces a journey around Ireland and Britain following the personified spirit of architecture and…

Golden Thread Gallery, Belfast, 17 December 2015–16 February 2016 In ‘She Devil’, two video projection screens fill the huge darkened warehouse space of Golden Thread’s Galleries One and Two. This doesn’t mean, however, that there are a small number of artworks on show. Between them, these two screens play a continuous loop of 15 video works. The ‘She Devil’ project has been presented, with different content but in a similar format, in Rome and Bucharest.