An exhibition of works from the Irish Museum of Modern Art Collection opens to the public at Glór Irish Music Centre, Ennis, Co Clare, on Friday 4 February 2005. Spring is Sprung is part of a collaborative exhibition between the Museum, Glór and IMMA’s National Programme. The exhibition combines artworks by Irish and international artists in a wide variety of media, and includes a series of prints by Sean Scully, a film by Helena Gorey, sculpture by Siobhan Hapaska and paintings by Jack B Yeats and Peter Doig.
The Irish-born artist Sean Scully lives in New York and is renowned for his adherence to the stripe in his expressionist paintings. In tandem with the emergence of Neo-Expressionist in the 1980s, he loosened the precise grid-like style of his earlier works, replacing it with bold rough-edged columns and panels of thickly applied paint. Pomes pennyeach is a series of prints in keeping with the robust quality of his paintings. His vertical stripes are inset with boxes of horizontal stripes, which nestle comfortably without appearing static.
Also working with the line, Helena Gorey’s highly-abstract artwork attempts to find a visual expression for the scientific laws governing such natural phenomena as the movement of the wind or changing light conditions. Gorey is concerned to acknowledge the underlying cosmic order while simultaneously recording the tremendous variation that is inherent within it. Her paintings and, more recently, her video works pay homage to the wonder of the endless diversity hidden in the overall order. Gorey’s paintings eschew ostentatious gesture, drawing instead on understatement to carry her message. Video and digital technology, used by her for the first time in Red I, represents a seamless progression from her previous painting practice.
The exhibition also includes two paintings by Jack B. Yeats; The Bouy and Talk. The foremost Irish painter of the first half of the 20th century, Yeats spent a lifetime painting the folk life and culture of his country, from simple, routine village scenes to romantic episodes around dramatic political and literary events. All of his paintings are imbued with a romantic sensibility in which the circus performer, the local boxing champion or the experienced old fisherman, become heroic figures whose struggles and history of survival are echoed by the rugged and often stormy application of paint. The Bouy shows Yeats at his most minimalist. The bouy tossing on the waves becomes a symbol for man’s vulnerability in the face of the sublime forces of nature, and recalls for Yeats all the sea shanties and stories that he was surrounded with as a child in Sligo.
Commenting on the show, Katie Verling, Director of the Glor Irish Music Centre, said: “We are thrilled to have such a high-calibre exhibition in Ennis. The quality of work in the show reflects the growing reputation of the Glor Gallery”
The Glór Gallery is located in the RIAI Award-winning, light-filled music centre located in the heart of Ennis. Glór Gallery’s reputation has grown significantly in 2004 with several high-profile exhibitions including Mike Byrne, Mick O’Dea, the National Gallery of Ireland, the Crafts Council of Ireland and Lorraine Wall selects…. Lorraine Wall, a native of Ennis, a Board member of IMMA and an artist of national importance, invited eleven outstanding Irish painters to exhibit with her in this unique exhibition in Glór. The artists who readily agreed to exhibit are Brian Bourke, Basil Blackshaw, Barrie Cooke, Felim Egan, Martin Gale, Richard Gorman, Seán McSweeney, Patrick Pye, Maria Simonds-Gooding, John Shinnors and Charles Tyrell.
The National Programme is designed to create access opportunities to the visual arts in a variety of situations and locations in Ireland. Using the Collection of the Irish Museum of Modern Art and exhibitions generated by the Museum, the National Programme facilitates the creation of exhibitions and other projects for display in a range of locations around the country.
The National Programme establishes the Museum as inclusive, accessible and national, de-centralising the Collection, and making it available to communities in their own localities, on their own terms, in venues with which the audience is comfortable and familiar.
A series of workshops and gallery talks will be held alongside the exhibition supported by the Department of Education & Science. A number of schools and colleges from County Clare will participate part in the workshops.
Spring is Sprung continues until 28 February 2005. Admission is free.
For further information please contact Patrice Molloy at Tel: +353 1 612 9900; Email: [email protected].