Niamh Flanagan & Ruth O’Donnell
Venue: D’ Lush café, Wexford Arts Centre - Cornmarket, Wexford town
Date: until 2nd September 2009
Wexford Arts Centre is delighted to present a two person print exhibition at D’Lush Café by artists Niamh Flanagan and Ruth O’Donnell.
Niamh Flanagan’s current work combines techniques such as sugarlift and spitbite to create fluid colourful prints. Elements from the artist’s surroundings are taken into account, processed, abstracted and used to create strange etched worlds full of rain and glitter, of floating houses, of secrets and dreams. The prints function as poetic meditations and create a nebulous world of storms and uncertainty, presenting a strangely surreal view of the world around us. The works deal with ideas of space, borders and boundaries, freedom and containment, of things that seem beyond our control. They also involve the printmaking processes and materials including hard grounds, soft grounds, spitbites, open bites, paper stretch, shoulder stretch, sugarlift, sugary biscuits, acid, tea, coffee – with the tangible art-making tools that are in our control.
Ruth O’Donnell incorporates both etching and carborundum printmaking techniques with multiple plates to layer inks and build up colour and intensity in her work. It may surprise viewers to know that the green in Holbein Green (above) is actually a layer of turquoise over orange ink. O’Donnell focuses on the salient detail of form and pattern, on the sheer sensuality of colour, on the tactile quality of the print medium, on the abstract structure of the image, and on shadow as a compositional device. As the artist observes and records how the light falls and transforms commonplace objects, deeper reflections emerge, and through her work she reflects on their histories, symbolic meanings and emotional significance.
Niamh Flanagan studied Fine Art Printmaking at NCAD, Dublin. She graduated in 2002 with a 1st Class Honours and is now a member of Graphic Studio Dublin. Her first solo show Dwellings of Mind and Space was held at The Printmakers Gallery, Dublin in 2007. Since then she has been involved in other group exhibitions, including Where Borders Meet in Gorlice, Poland and Artist’s Proof at the Chester Beatty Library Dublin. She has also been invited to take part in l‘Île d’Hiver/The Winter Island, an exhibition of contemporary Irish printmaking at the Centre Culturel Irlandais. Awards include Arts Council Mentorship Scheme, Travel and Training Awards and a grant from Culture Ireland.
Ruth O’Donnell began printmaking as a student in the Institut Saint Luc, Brussels (1986-90), taught by renowned Belgian printmaker, Francis de Bolle. She has been a member of Graphic Studio Dublin since 1991 and has also been a member of the Artichoke Print Workshop, London. She has been exhibiting consistently in solo and group exhibitions, as well as working on commissions, in Ireland and internationally, for the past 20 years.
Source www.wexfordartscentre.ie
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