St Stephens Green Art Exhibition

It was great to take part in the monthly St Stephens Green Art Exhibition, where artists feature their paintings all around St Stephens Green Park, where passers-by can enjoy the art and purchase paintings.

I chose to display a collection I had created based around the concept of communication and the wonder of the story of ‘The Tower of Babel’; the story of how we all ended up speaking different languages. The paintings represent the bricks that make up the tower of Babel, with each brick depicting a different language / hieroglyphic or form of communication; various symbols from different languages falling in confusion when the tower collapsed; being tongue-tied with the confusion of so many different languages in the world;tow modern communication such as emojis and the universal understanding in communication such as thumbs up / fingers crossed / the ok hand gesture. They are painted in gouache acrylic in a bright and modern graphic way, with colours that really pop. With art being subjective, the viewer can take their own interpretation of what each painting is and what it may represent for them.

Being part of the exhibition is a great experience – some highlights include meeting and being inspired by other artists and talking to the public about art and what it means to them. I also had some greeting cards available to purchase, which many people enjoyed. They can be purchased here and also ordered at a number of sizes and formats here.

September 29, 2017 /  

Printmaking

Printmaking

I recently attended some printmaking workshops, where I got the opportunity to create this playful feline print. Using drypoint as a technique, I focused on drawing textures and patterns to build up this image. Perspex (or plexi) is a great material to bring to these workshops because it is not as intimidating as a copper plate and because it is transparent, you can easily trace over the lines of an existing picture. The quality of the drypoints is also another important factor to pay attention. Investing on good tools show the possibilities that can be explored best.

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January 27, 2017 /  

CEAD Exhibition 2016

CEAD Exhibition 2016

This year’s CEAD exhibition brought a huge and diverse range of art out on display. I was delighted to be featured among all this talent. Here are a few highlights below:

Exploring Portraiture

Eyes are said to be a window to the soul. For this exhibition, I wanted to explore this further in the work through portraiture, to show how someone is painted in portraiture can depict an openness and innocence within a person or a contrasting darkness by painting in a more distorted manner and also a more voyeuristic view of painting someone who seems unaware, such as the male portrait below.

Artists I looked at who had explored similar themes and/or painting styles were Jenny Saville, Marcella Dumas, Frida Kahlo and Francis Bacon.

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A Piece of Me, Naomi Kelly

This piece is about the body with a focus on breast cancer – the process of chemotherapy, mastectomy, cancer cells and how it all affects the body all shown in a visual way. Naomi uses utensils from around the home in her art as a lot of women can be in the domestic home environment. I thought this piece was very well thought out and implemented and it connects the viewer to the sensation and intrusion to their body that women go through when dealing with breast cancer. I thought Naomi tackled this sensitive subject manner in a visually-interesting and powerful way.

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The Watchful Eye of CCTV

Camera City, Stuart Pearson
I found the subject matter of photographer Stuart Pearson quite interesting, a very popular topic at present – the level in which we are all, as a society, being monitored in our daily lives. Stuart explores how humans interact with the built environment and designed public spaces. He explores how security cameras are incorporated into our built environment where we are recorded hundreds of times per day, often without even realising, with facial recognition software utilised that can identify and even track us individually and our movements over time and concerns over it’s use on social media such as Facebook.

Through his work, he raise the question of if we still have a right to the freedom of privacy and anonymity in public places and online. There are a lot of uses of this level of tracking in terms of reducing crime, targeting specific audiences through monitoring online consumer activity and increased awareness of current happenings such as traffic incident coverage but there definitely does beg the question of – how much is too much – and are we ok with the current level of it? I found his work quite thought-provoking.

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Further Art on Show

There really was so much quality work on display that it would be difficult to run through them all but have a browse below and feast your eyes on some more of the talented artist’s work.

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July 10, 2016 /  

Farmleigh Portraits Exhibition

Portraits of a Nation Exhibition

Featuring a wide range of portraits, old and new.

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On a recent visit to the Farmleigh gallery in the Phoenix Park, the ‘Portraits of a Nation’ exhibition was on display and I was lucky enough to view it just before it finished up. It features 82 historic and contemporary portraits by 54 artists including paintings, photographs, original prints, sculpture and drawings.

I have always loved portraiture and the art of trying to capture the essence of someone’s character through drawing, painting or photography. This exhibition was unique in offering such a wide range of styles of portraiture between classic, traditional paintings and modern, contemporary drawings along with everything in between.

It’s amazing to see the level of detail that the artists capture, with some paintings being difficult to determine whether it’s a photograph or a painting as the quality is so good. I enjoy drawing and painting people myself, and can only aspire to someday reach even close to the talent these artists display.

Keep updated on current or future exhibitions at the Farmleigh gallery on their website.

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May 30, 2016 /  

Offset Dublin 2016

 

Offset Dublin 2016 Highlights

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Each year, the Offset creative festival seems to be getting better. With more and more linked events created around it, it’s an inspiring festival that stands out on every creative’s calendar.

This year, among the range of great talent speaking, some highlights were:

Tado

This creative duo are very lovable and seem to work so well together. They are so inspired with their creative projects, they live eat and breathe the work when they are in the midst of each project. They create a massive selection of characters, all shapes and sizes, for children’s and adult projects including cartoons, branding and advertisements. You can’t help but fall in love with their enthusiastic fun personalities when presenting and all their playful creations. I like the interior graphics that they did for Sheffield Children’s Hospital, click below to see more of it…

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Studio Dumbar

This Rotterdam-based branding company inspired the audience with some great projects. One that particularly stood out was the Alzheimer Netherland identity work. It was really interesting to see them show the process of a range of initial concepts that were discarded and their thought process with deciding this and then the chosen direction. The final identity is very cleverly created, whilst remaining very respectful to the Alzheimer community. It really demonstrated well the disease of alzheimers and how it can affect the memory and brain, with the sharpness and focus fading in and out, visually representing the condition accurately with great creative execution. View more about this campaign below…

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Úna Burke

It’s inspiring to see a Irish fashion designer Úna Burke do so well at such a young age. The London-based designer’s work is intricate and detailed and her passion for what she does is immediately apparent. She has designed leather pieces for the Hunger Games, along with costume accessories for famous models and performers and worked with many of the greats. Her sculptural work is unique and highly creative, with a feeling of being from a previous era combined with a modern twist.

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And finishing with the amazing Seb Lester

Seb Lester’s traditional hand-crafted calligraphy is a work of art, an art-form that is rare to see in modern times. It’s relaxing to watch the gentle swishes as his ink hits the paper and dances around from one point to another across the page to leave behind beautiful messages and artworks.

He talked about going back to his roots of what inspired him to follow a creative career path and advised any creatives in need of stimulation to do this. A quote he mentioned was ‘If you don’t ask, then you don’t get’ in relation to how he expressed interest in NASA in an interview online and he then got approached to design a logo for NASA space station which he would never have expected to become a reality! It’s a good motto to have when hesitating in anything in connection to following your dreams. His talk received a standing ovation at the end – a great roundup to 2016′ Offset event.

View a sample of Seb’s work and a video of him in action below…

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April 13, 2016 /  

Facebook Relationship Dance Steps

Facebook Relationship Dance Steps

Featuring Artist Stephanie Posavec

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I recently came across this data-art project created by London-based artist Stephanie Posavec for Facebook and found it interesting. It uses data to document couples early stages of interaction on Facebook and turns it in to an interactive dance steps installation for Facebook headquarters in California.

It’s funny how couples can often perform an orchestrated, public version of their relationship on social media. I think this project is clever in demonstrating this idea and the interactive art piece was very well implemented by Stephanie.

To see more of her work, you can view her website here

 

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March 14, 2016 /