Group Show, January 2007

Cora Cummins, Sarah Durcan,Nevan Lahart, Tadhg McSweeney, Geraldine O'Neill and Alison Pilkington

11 January 2007 - 03 February 2007

Kevin Kavanagh is pleased to present an exhibition of new work by Cora Cummins, Sarah Durcan, Nevan Lahart, Tadhg McSweeney, Geraldine O’Neal and Alison Pilkington.

Cora Cummins’ latest work, a collection of print works and paintings entitled The Rain, The Sea and The Hours, can be read as a playful series of meditations on the idea of heterotopias – sites and situations whose borders and rules are self-defined and self-governed. Cummins makes reference to an eclectic and eccentric variety of rule bound, isolated domains: caretakers’ huts, roundabouts, ocean going ships, lighthouses and bandstands. The collection of works could be read as a visual logbook, recounting the various incidents, encounters and imaginings we are subject to when journeying in both familiar and unfamiliar realms.

In a series of three new paintings, Sarah Durcan explores the representation of space and time. The imagery is drawn from places in Ireland, specifically Ramsfort. Ramsfort was a house in Gorey, Co. Wexford, first built in 1751, burnt down in the 1798 rebellion, rebuilt and later demolished in the 1970’s.

Nevan Lahart hadn’t got a clue what to do for this show. For years he was reluctant to work whilst under the influence of alcohol; that all changed a few months ago in Hamburg when there was a free studio / exhibition space and a readily available supply of cheap drink. He was surprised with the result and figured out the secret of drunk art - it should be started whilst on the way to inebriation and not continued from a previous sober state. So what with the month of festivities that have just past, Nevan hit the cans on the 26th and 27th and produced some drawings that he likes which could pass for a sober person’s musings in 2D lines on fancy Fabriano paper.

Tadhg McSweeney‘s recent work consists of table-based constructions from found materials. Current artist in residence at the Red Stable Studios, the pieces began with the collection of twigs, wrappers and other discarded items picked up on walks in St Anne’s park. They are combined with close to hand ‘make and do’ materials to create small atmospheric tableaux; delicate birds, and other scenes.

Geraldine O’Neil’s paintings explore the appearance of things, recreating a certain truth on a flat canvas. The seemingly haphazard collection of objects used by O’Neill within her work, are not always all that they seem. O’Neill normally selects objects that share space with the incidentals of life and these objects are carefully chosen for their symbolic reference. In O’Neill’s latest piece, a large scale drawing, the object selected is an actual painting - Gainsbourough’s A Cottage Girl with Dog and Pitcher.

Alison Pilkington has always been interested in making paintings that refer to the non-material world. In some ways her work could be seen as a reaction to the 24hr TV and advertising culture and over saturation of media imagery and technology that pervades contemporary society. Pilkington’s latest work explores ideas of image making and meaning, subject mattter and reference in abstract art. In her new paintings she examines her own methodology in the process of painting. Through a series of duplicate paintings each mark and gesture is reproduced and the viewer is asked to examine which marks are spontaneous and which are copied.

back to all shows