‘London artists cope with Kilkenny Arts week
8th-15th August 2010: The Centre for Recent Drawing C4RD & others’
Shankill Castle, Paulstown, Co. Kilkenny will host an exhibition of
paintings, drawings, etchings, sculpture and film as part of the
Kilkenny Arts Fesitval 2010. This provides a opportunity not just to
view the exhibition but also to visit this historic house and its
wonderful gardens.
Shankill Castle’s long history is reflected in the complexity of its
character. At its core the house is medieval but was radically altered
in the early 18th century and again in 1820s by the architect Daniel
Robertson. It is set within gardens and parkland that were originally
laid out in a formal style with a canal and formal planting of which
remnants of lime allées survive. The gardens were naturalized in the
19th century with additional planting and serpentine bays added to the
canal; further changes were again made in the 20th century.
Director and founder of C4RD, Andrew Hewish with the other four
resident C4RD artists will be showing some work inspired by their time
spent in a primeval woodland. Although treading the footsteps of
Romanticism and Transcendentalism, it becomes clear in the work the
21st Century is not far behind. Andrew’s work was very evocative of a
pre 9/11 Manhattan cityscape- a high crescendo of rising towers – on a
miniature scale- it was in fact a semi-chain sawn and semi-torn slice
of brittle timber- oak perhaps. In seeing his other wooden objects,
totemic and theatrical, some toying with Venetian architectural fancy,
painted and voluminous, I realized our mutual love of artifice, but
his was fuelled by far more refined and specific knowledge of the
histories of play, theatre and entertainments of those ducal palaces.
Daphne’s drawings are made often using the liquid, pigment and a tool
or stick found beneath the forest canopy, portraying the harmony and
warbling of nature in purest of means. Her marks are robust as any I
have seen- like some of Quentin Blake’s piercing, scratching
characters- however, appearing more like the brittle, wattle and daub
strongholds of the iron-age. They could be from any age and almost for
that very reason her work is elusive and cleverly camouflaged. It does
not shout to be seen- it just is- it bears no burden on the overloaded
world of flashing, psychedelic sign and symbol we are obliged to
interact with in our digitally driven era. It cradles us at first
encounter.
Joan Edlis uses laboratory processes in her pursuit of that final
mark- which is out of reach- as all materials indefinitely fade and
change. The iodine and calamine lotion she uses is medicine- they are
applied to children suffering chicken pox or adults shingles. The
contrasts – translucent brown versus white opacity- stamp marks,
swipes and swabs are fugitive. Rapidly changing, diminishing and
vanishing, the direct sunlight speeding it up- the power of which is
so normal and taken for granted as plainly as the light of day- is
visible, unavoidable evidence that nothing lasts and so nothing is
lost.
Alex Gough would have been well used to virgin forest territory, being
from that northernmost part of Finland. His work resembles those fir
trees, downward drooping, from the weight of snow. Gravity is a
useful tool in his painting- letting the paint flow as much as moving
it has a dentritic pictorial effect- practical, useful and apt for
anything organic- streams, plants, flux. Urban places disguise this,
slabs of stone and brick pasted together somehow manage to block
contact with the rhythms of nature and with the first principals which
he is now mastering, pursuing Being and Sensation.
Sarah Lederman usually makes self portraits in her studio however she
has used her evocative painting techniques and transferred her elegant
touch to make portraits of trees, the fragile green atmosphere of the
underwood, and explored life working in the wilderness surrounded by
birdsong and wildflowers. Her Kilkenny work is redolent of the bucolic
lush environment of woodland poetry. The usual hermetic reference of
her work has extended joyfully to meet that of the woodland.
Neal Jones who won a prize at John Moores 2008 and stortlisted again in 2010, shares great
sympathy with the C4RD project. Painter and sculptor, of trees,
implements, boats and the absurd. Recently his images abandon the
entangled tendrils and roots of nature, which he so fervently
cultivates in his London garden, and pares down and hones metaphors
from this vivid, romantic motif. From within his studio shed, which is
itself a sculpted sum of fragments shaped to his particular interior
needs, he reveals a more Spartan, frugal facet and heralds the first
shoots of Spring. It is all we need – moreover – the mere hope of it
is all we need. In his eyes the birth, bud, and dawn awakening, is
enough to record- as so quickly comes decay. Even now in early June,
the seeds of bunches of grapes are discernible on the vine that has
only just lost its bloom. As avid gardener he comprehends the
unrelenting machine of nature and the toil involved to bear some
alimentary satisfaction. His brush marks are broad and child like
though the palette belies index knowledge of the very many forms of
shrub, petal, root and sapling. From so elemental a basis, his work
carries you wherever you choose: it is not forcing you down some
narrow alley to know or think of one aspect of a thing or of one idea.
It sets your imagination free to roam- like that perfect garden idyll
-to muse at your own pace- be it restless or leisurely. And thereby it
does remarkably succeed to transform and reassure a viewer in a time
when ‘solipsistic conceptuality…is mainstream’ his painting ‘seems to
suggest a domestication of the angst and planetary despairs that
assault us from all sides; a dislocation and simultaneously an
abandonment to the process of painting itself’ as Tess Jaray deftly
suggests, in her essay on Neal from her new book ‘Painting: Mysteries
& Confessions’
Lee Campbell will turn over a new leaf and exhibit his exciting pencil
drawings. Never shy of taking a flamboyant stance and tackling tough
subjects, he has been primarily a performance artist. He successfully
co-curated the hugely popular Free Art fair in the Barbican last
October- the purported anathema to the Frieze art fair in Regent’s
Park.
Kirsti Grotmol will be showing her 30 minute documentary film ‘The
Girl from Nordland- Model for Edvard Munch’ previously shown at the
Munch museum and the George Pompidou Centre. Trine Lindheim who also
lives in the Munch artist colony of Ekely in Oslo will be showing some prints.
Elizabeth Cope, who had a recent residency in the studio of Edvard Munch, will show her Oslo snowscapes as well as seascapes from Riverchapel, Co. Wexford. With ever adept and ecstatic brushmarks, infinite energy radiates from her extravagant canvases. Her paintings are disarmingly direct with a unique depth of spirit, wild, generous is clearly evident. The Eigse group exhibition in the new Carlow Arts Centre and Greenacres in Wexford have recent paintings now on view. Next year shewill have a solo retrospective in The National Arts league of America, Gramercy Park, New York will be held in March as well as a show in Beijing with artist Zhang Xiaotao.
Kevin Hughes will be showing a short film he wrote and directed as
part of a film-making workshop he led in Kilkenny. This 10 minute
thriller explores action movie genre and was shot in half a day on the
shortest day of the year in the pre- reformation church and graveyard
from which Shankill (Sean Chill meaning Old Church) takes its name.
Cathy Fitzgerald is showing an intimate series of short films. Her
work communicates the urgency to be aware of the ecology we are part
of. Never leaving a stone unturned, Cathy had absorbed knowledge from
a wide range of natural sciences in her native New Zealand before
making the Black stairs mountains in the south east her new home, and
assuming a great understanding of her new found culture. Can facts
about ecology be transmitted in a minute long film with out losing the
poetry? Well, yes it seems. Cathy has effortlessly and elegantly
poised statistics and figures with sound and moving image.
Dora Wade will be showing graphic black ink lino prints inspired after
a year of teaching art at Pimilico Academy secondary school where she
has been gaining an insight into the art of teenagers. With a wealth
of national museums close by, it must have been a fruitful course of
development for those with any appetite to glean. Dora’s enthusiasm
for the work of her students has to some extent led her to abandon
the established art world of the mature, albeit with fresh and
fascinating results.
Timothy Betjeman is a painter of fluid and dexterous compositions with
both Bosch and Dufy as his mentors. The joy of interplay has also
manifested itself in his lively felt tip pen comic strips which
employ a unique wit urbane and dry. He began doing them in the U.S.
before settling in Hackney.
Pippa Ridley makes collaged paintings, with a vibrant palette that
speaks of her childhood spent in the West Indies. She has been
chartering significant personal milestones and thrives on recording
the hustle and bustle of London streets in sepia ink.
Hilary Hope Guise is a painter and art lecturer. Her work draws from
the rich expanses of the South African landscape where she was born.
Ermias Kifleysias from Ethiopa, will be showing large scale sculpture
along with Reuben Cope. Isabelle Webster who is currently at Parsons
Art College in New York will have some of her delightful poetry made
in mosaic.
C4RD Artists:
ANDREW HEWISH
DAPHNE WARBURG-ASTOR
JOAN EDLIS
ALEX GOUGH
SARAH LEDERMAN
ERMIAS KIFLEYESIAS
as well as:
NEAL JONES
KEVIN HUGHES
TRINE LINDHEIM
KIRSTI GROTMOL
CATHY FITZGERALD
HILARY GUISE
TIM BETJEMAN
REUBEN COPE
PHOEBE COPE
PIPPA RIDLEY
DORA WADE
ISABELLE WEBSTER
LEE CAMPBELL
Open Daily 8th-15th August 2010 9AM-9PM
OPENING on Sunday 8th August 12noon-6pm
Shankill Castle & Gardens
Paulstown
Co. Kilkenny
Ireland
(located just off junction of N9/ N10
train station: Muine Beag/Bagnelstown, 2 miles)
Tel. +353 (0) 59 9726145
MOB: + 353 (0) 86 3971748
http://www.castlesgardensireland.com/searchdetail-2-36724.html
phoebecope@gmail.com
www.C4RD.org.uk
