I was delighted to have my work selected to be in the Halftone 2017 exhibition, featured in the Library Project in Temple Bar, Dublin.
HALFTONE is an initiative by PhotoIreland Foundation, hosted every year at The Library Project. Running for 18 days, the fair brings together a large selection of works by established and emerging artists, showcasing Ireland’s exciting Art scene.
This humorous and playful collection, depicts the famous seagulls which heavily populate Dublin city centre’s boardwalk, along the River Liffey. These seagulls are known to circulate people eating their lunches, hoping to get a bite.
One print features these birds characteristics of being feisty, friendly and fearless. It also plays on the Dublin slang word for women or girls which is ‘birds’. On another print in the set, the birds have been given popular Dublin girls names. On two of the prints, there is a play on the famous Irish / Dublin song, ‘Molly Malone’, changing the lyrics to feature the birds. This again could refer to the seagulls or Dublin girls.
Images of Dublin’s boardwalk and Liffey in the city centre can be seen through the silhouettes of the seagulls.
See more on the Halftone website here or if you would like to purchase one of these prints, please see them on Etsy.
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.
Designing for the Future: Trends we Need to Consider Now
Design is something that has been around since the beginning of time. From the ten commandments of Moses or the Egyptian and stone age petroglyphs – using design to communicate a message is something that remains consistent.
It was great to be part of the group illustration exhibition recently in Filmbase, Temple Bar in Dublin city centre. There was lots of excitement with putting up our framed art after a year of hard work in developing our illustration style leading to all the prep work involved preparing for an exhibition. There was a huge turn-out on the opening night, everyone agreed it was a great success.
The theme I chose was the wonder of the Tower of Babel – the story of how we all ended up speaking different languages. The concept shows the confusion that followed the collapse of the tower in the story where everyone began speaking different languages, with the tongue-tiedness that the language barrier brought. I featured some of the earliest forms of communication – ancient hieroglyhics and pictograms – in a bright and modern graphic way, using gouache colours that pop. I went on to show how language and communication has developed to today – where we use smiley faces and hand gestures to communicate which work through all languages. I enjoyed researching this theme, learning about the Rosetta stone and Egyptian hieroglyphics. There are some beautiful symbols used among all the languages and, although it would be simpler if we all spoke the one language, I would hate to see such individuality and beauty of each language’s unique symbols and form of communicating ever to become extinct.
One of the advantages of the location was that during the week, there was still a lot of visitors popping in as the artworks are displayed in the windows of Filmbase and attract plenty of passers-by and art lovers. Many of us had our own pop-up shops selling our giclee prints and greeting cards, which still continued to attract interest throughout the week.
My greeting cards and prints are available to purchase on Etsy at:
Looking forward to the exhibition of the illustration course I have been attending over the last year. It’s on in Filmbase in Temple Bar, Dublin 2, opening 6.30pm on the 6th June and continuing until 10th June. It’s been great fun to be part of and I’ve met some really talented and friendly people along the way.
There’s a pop-up shop selling our giclee prints and greeting cards also. Come along and check out all the great work.
Poster artwork by Virginia Fiorini, graphic design by Fintan Wall.
Dublin’s annual creative design event, hosted in Grand Canal dock, was full of talented speakers and designers eager to soak up inspiration and pick up some design tips and goodies. This year had a high focus on illustration, which was great to see. I am currently enrolled in a one-year illustration course, to develop my illustration style and bring more illustration in to my graphic design work, so it was great to hear about illustrators who are doing well in the industry. Here are a few of the talented designers and illustrators that caught my eye this year:
Marion Deuchars
Marion Deuchars is a Scottish award-winning illlustrator and hand letterer. She is well-known for her children’s book designs, an area of graphic design I would love to get in to in the future, so I found her talk inspiring. She also works with brand and advertising agencies. Her illustration style is playful and appeals to children and adults alike. See more of her work here.
The Project Twins
Great to see young Irish designers speaking at such a big event. This duo hail from Cork and have accomplished a lot already in their careers. The printmakers have spent time in a residency in the Facebook offices, which sounds like it was a lot of creative fun and have been featured in a huge amount of shows and exhibitions. Their work is simple but quirky; their bright and playful illustrations clearly deliver each project message with accuracy and bring a smile to your face. Purchase a print for your home or studio here.
And last, but certainly not least, advertising agency Chemistry
I love Chemistry’s ideas. Their work is the type of work I look at and wish I had done it myself! For the sad death of the All Blacks rugby player Jonah Lomu, they designed this beautiful image below of the New Zealand fern with one of it’s leaves fallen, which very simply and eloquently reflected the tragedy of New Zealand and the All Blacks loss of such an important player and Kiwi legend.
Another strong campaign they spoke about was the ‘I want to get Cancer’ campaign. I must admit this was quite a controversial one. When I first saw it on a bus stop and then on a TV advert, I had mixed feelings. I understood the point but still didn’t like to see those words as they seemed like a negative affirmation at first glance and because of it’s in your face nature, it could pose insensitive to someone with a family member dealing with or having lost someone to cancer. However, the talk really brought more insight to this campaign. They asked half of the audience to stand up and said that by 2020, it is predicted that 1 in 2 of us will get cancer. The figure was quite striking and by separating the audience like that, it really hit home. They said they needed a message that really got attention and drove awareness with people that this isn’t something we should be turning a blind eye to, that we need to be more proactive rather than reactive with fighting it. Some of the team working on this campaign had actually fought cancer themselves, so they were actually in a strong position to speak up about it, after having gone through it personally. They spoke about how the campaign had been really effective and brought in a lot more calls and awareness, therefore it hit the objective of the brief very well and brought the desired outcome.
I also loved their LIDL Christmas advert, which was touching and well created with the story based around families and coming together to be there for eachother.
View it below:
Another striking image they created for an article on the history of the events at Chernobyl, using charred Russian Dolls was also very effective. I think they have the ability to deliver a message effectively in a way that touches on your heart strings and makes you think about the issue.
So that sums up my Offset 2017 highlights – there were many more talented designers speaking but I could only pick a few! Now to put that inspiration to good use…
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.
I love how these electricity power boxes around the streets of Dublin have been transformed into works of art. What a great way to add some visual interest to public objects that would normally be considered mundane! My favourite is the one which appears to be a little house – very endearing and clever! Have a look at some of the ones I have captured below:
Congrats to Tales for Tadpoles for their continued development! Their latest store to officially open is on the popular location of Drury Street – ideally situated in Dublin 2, a key destination for Dublin city-centre shoppers. Once again, their store’s merchandise is displayed with great warmth and charm – the perfect way to house the lovely childhood stories and characters in their collection of classic children’s books, gifts and memorabilia.
No doubt it will be a busy store in the run up to the Christmas season!
Find out more about Tales for Tadpoles and their wide range of unique gifts here: www.talesfortadpoles.com
If you follow my updates, you’ll know I love to attend design talks and events to stay updated with the latest goings-on in the design world and keep the inspirational juices flowing!
Recently I attended one of the IDI & Epsilon Bread & Butter talks and created this poster based on a tongue-in-cheek quote from one of the designers, Niall McCormack, who was speaking on the night – “I love bad printing”.
I had fun designing this poster, showcasing some of the different types of bad printing errors that can occur, in a light-hearted way. It’s nice to do something random without a brief sometimes for a bit of fun 🙂
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
