'Beneath the Dock Leaf' Installation Shots

Beneath the Dock Leaf finished yesterday. I was very happy with the feedback on the work, this was the first exhibition of the work since I finished the MFA in June and it was the first solo show since Excursion last October. There was also more paintings on show than during my MFA show, in the old Frawley's building I installed 9 pieces but at The Hyde Bridge Gallery I hung 14 works. There were several new paintings that I worked on over the summer but a big difference with these newer paintings was that I have been working in a space on my own so there wasn't anyone to ask for feedback and had to trust my own judgement. I was told too that there was a big attendance at the exhibition for Culture Night.

I really enjoyed working in The Hyde Bridge Gallery. It's a really great gallery consisting of 2 rooms and a corridor space. The 2 rooms contain a fireplace each. This prompted me to work on 2 pieces specifically for this exhibition and while I had both on display only was installed to interact with a fireplace. There's one wall in the first room that is almost entirely made up of a window and in the second room are 2 windows situated right in the corner providing both rooms with strong natural light. Between the windows, fireplaces and the fact that the gallery is made up of 3 spaces provided an interesting challenge during installation, making me consider which paintings were going together in which rooms and also how one room would lead into the next while trying to avoid very literal narratives.

Fairy and Folktales of Ireland by W.B Yeats served as a source of research for my work and as The Hyde Bridge Gallery is part of The Yeats Society Building in Sligo it was a fitting venue given the theme of my current work.

I meant to get a video of the exhibition but my camera wasn't charged, I'll do it for the next show. I was contact by The Dunamaise Arts Centre in Portlaoise on the 4th of September about the possibility of exhibiting Beneath the Dock Leaf there sometime in 2016 so I'll be speaking with them soon about that.

I'll be posting documentation of the individual works over the next few weeks on my website and adding new pieces to the body of work.