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The miniVAN

From gritty urban graffiti to abstract surrealism, The miniVAN deftly navigates the ever-evolving artistic landscape, reflecting the pulse of modern culture.

Inspired by the pioneering spirit of Visual Artists News Sheet, The miniVAN sets out to redefine the landscape of contemporary art, providing a comprehensive platform for both established artists and emerging talents. As we honour the roots of the past, we fervently embrace the spirit of change, envisioning a future where art continues to inspire and challenge the human experience.

Packed with captivating features, exclusive interviews, and thought-provoking editorials, each issue of The miniVAN is a collectible art piece in itself. Readers can expect insider insights, behind-the-scenes anecdotes, and a celebration of the unsung heroes shaping the artistic zeitgeist.

The visionary team behind The miniVAN comprises renowned art writers, respected artists and curators, and passionate creatives dedicated to curating an enriching experience for readers and artists alike.

The miniVAN invites you to embark on an extraordinary journey that transcends the boundaries of imagination. Whether you’re an art aficionado, a budding artist, or simply curious about the transformative power of visual expression, The miniVAN promises to ignite your passion and broaden your horizons, bringing you from the inside of an artist’s studio to the wide realm of creative practices that exist outside of how we think of visual art.

Critique

Critique: Barry Mulholland ‘Tossed in the Drink’

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Pallas Projects/Studios, Dublin 14 – 29 August 2020 The launch of Barry Mulholland’s solo exhibition, ‘Tossed in The Drink’, at Pallas Projects/Studios – the first in the gallery’s 2020/21 Artist-Initiated Project programme – was postponed due to COVID-19. However, this delay proved to be a fruitful one, with the Belfast-based artist creating a diverse body of new work, inspired by recent events, and making use of a broad range of media and materials. The resulting exhibition succinctly articulates the lived realities of 2020, characterised by anxiety, flux and daily news cycles, that have seen us collectively lurching from one crisis to the next, with barely a pause to process or…

Buttered Up

KATHERINE NOLAN REFLECTS ON ÁINE PHILLIPS’S PERFORMANCE-BASED EXHIBITION AT MART GALLERY, DUBLIN. Centered around the short film, Buttered Up, this exhibition by Áine Phillips explores embodied domestic femininities through performance. The form of the work varies across sculpture, painting and moving image, as well as live performances on the opening night by Phillips, Rachel Fallon, Helena Walsh and Ella Bertilsson. What does it mean to be buttered up? On opening night audience members were offered a viscerally charged, dynamic experience of the concept at the heart of the exhibition. Entering through the red doors of MART Gallery, visitors inescapably encounter a woman in a red pillbox hat, ensconced in a…

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Critique

Critique: ‘Past/ures’

The Library Project, Dublin17 – 31 January 2020 ‘Past/ures’ at the Library Project, Dublin, opened during the same week that over 400 farmers from all over Ireland reluctantly deserted their farms and descended on Dublin’s Merrion Square in their tractors to demand a new deal with the government and a fair increase in price for their beef. These notions of abandonment and defying the odds resonate throughout all of the offerings in ‘Past/ures’, which was curated by Leah Corbett, the recipient of the Black Church Print Studio’s Emerging Curator Award 2019. Caitríona Leahy’s prints, Monument to Memory I & II (2011), recontextualise the familiar by extracting abandoned handball alleys from…

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Critique

Critique: ‘Over Nature’

Rathfarnham Castle, Dublin14 November – 21 December 2019 Arriving late to view ‘Over Nature’ at Rathfarnham Castle means settling into a very particular viewing condition – namely one of silence. First encountered in this group show (curated by Valeria Ceregini) is an installation by Shane Finan. In an unrestored dining room, a projector casts landscape video footage onto a faint and skeletal painting that spans two large canvases. The projector is controlled by the viewer through a small touchscreen device, upon which a grid of options appears, displaying geometric symbols. Each of these options is linked to a separate video. The painting – a somewhat ghostly transposition of William Turner’s…

Organisation Profile

Nomadic Gallery

AIDAN KELLY MURPHY INTERVIEWS MARYSIA WIECKIEWICZ-CARROLL ABOUT THE RATIONALE AND EVOLUTION OF BERLIN OPTICIANS GALLERY. Aidan Kelly Murphy: Launched in late 2018, Berlin Opticians is an Irish gallery with a primarily online presence, supported by periodic physical exhibitions. What were the origins of the gallery? Marysia Wieckiewicz-Carroll: The rationale for Berlin Opticians dates back to 2015 and conversations I had with a number of artists about the need for another commercial gallery in Dublin. There was this group of artists who graduated around 2009 and into a period when everything seemed to collapse; and while there were opportunities to show work in DIY spaces, there wasn’t that link to the…

Critique

Critique: Eoin Mc Hugh ‘Loje, Jelo, Laso’

Kerlin Gallery, Dublin25 October – 7 December 2019 Speaking on Luke Clancy’s ‘Culture File’ on RTÉ Radio 1, Eoin Mc Hugh offered ‘Loje, Jelo, Laso’ (Red, Yellow, Blue) as straightforwardly phonetic, like all of the words in Toki Pona, a philosophical language invented – believe it or not – to make things easier to understand.1 McHugh’s titles have previously referenced poetry and psychoanalysis, in an oeuvre rich with allusions to both. Clearly interested in language and how it relates to our perception of art, he complicates things considerably here by choosing titles – our traditional access points – every bit as esoteric as the images themselves. Maybe that’s the point.…

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Critique

Critique: Doireann Ní Ghrioghair ‘Declaration of the State Metropolis at Tara’

Pallas Projects/Studios, Dublin31 October – 16 November 2019 Doireann Ní Ghrioghair’s recent exhibition, ‘Declaration of the State Metropolis at Tara’, presented a series of new sculptures, which reimagine the work of architect Daithí Ó hÁinle, who mapped plans for a new capital city for Ireland at Tara, County Meath, in 1942. Ó hÁinle was a member of Ailtirí na hAiséirghe, a far-right political party formed in the same year, whose stated aims included transforming Ireland into a fascist, one-party Catholic state, where emigration would be criminalised and the speaking of English forbidden. As no actual drawings exist for Ní Ghrioghair to work from, she took inspiration from Ó hÁinle’s florid…

‘Social Commons’

Danny Kelly reviews the group exhibition 'Social Commons' (2 – 12 May) at Liberty Hall Theatre, Dublin.

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Hannah Fitz ‘OK’

Carissa Farrell reviews Hannah Fitz's exhibition, 'OK' (23 April – 25 May), at Kerlin Gallery, Dublin.

Rock the Casbah

LILY CAHILL, WINNER OF THE VAI/DCC ART WRITING AWARD 2019, REVIEWS MICHELLE DOYLE’S SOLO EXHIBITION, ‘OBEDIENT CITY’, AT A4 SOUNDS GALLERY, DUBLIN. I recently hosted a visiting American friend. Spending the majority of their stay in suburban south Dublin prompted the query as to why the fashion is for graveled driveways as opposed to grass. This was one of the only notable differences between the modern metropoles of Dublin and Boston, apparently. Having never paid any particular attention to such ubiquitous assemblies in the past, I couldn’t speculate as to my fellow citizens’ preference for large gatherings of pounded stones surrounding one’s abode. The zealous tourist prompted pause for thought:…

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