TRALEE ART GROUP
9th to 31st December 2011
Tralee Art Group is a collective of local artists from the North Kerry area. The members are involved in a range of activities that include art workshops, art history lectures and life drawing classes. Committed to the development of members’ work, the group is one of the most active and progressive in the country.
Each year Tralee Art Group organises a number of exhibitions of members’ work and this year has partnered with Siamsa Tire to work closely with curator Rebekah Wall to develop a Winter collection of work for exhibit in the gallery.
DOMINIC FEE
28th October to 2nd December 2011
Dominic Fee is a Master Printmaker who developed his practice in the Middle East. During this time he became heavily inspired by Arabic architecture and that culture’s interest in geometry. Returning to Ireland in 1998, Dominic became a member of Cork Printmakers fine art print workshop, where he regularly exhibits.
The exhibition at Siamsa Tire was the culmination of a period of over two years of studio work, and was primarily concerned with geometry, particularly that of the circle. The circle exists as a perfect entity as an idea only; any attempt to represent it in physical form will contain imperfections on close enough scrutiny. Nevertheless, the human mind has little trouble imagining the ideal version. In addition to a series of wall mounted abstract sculptures, a major component of this show was a site-specific installation in the main gallery space, which is itself a circle.
NURTURE
Michelle O'Shea
23rd September to 21st October 2011
Michelle O’Shea was the recipient of the 2011 Siamsa Tíre Emerging Artist Award, an initiative established to support emerging artists of talent and promise. Michelle’s exhibition, Nurture was her first and inaugural solo exhibition in Ireland. Nurture featured a number of installation pieces which examined our sense of faith and existence.
Artist in Residence - Illusions of Decadence
Sandra Ann Vita Minchin with Harold Offeh
Sandra Vita Ann Minchin, was Artist in Residence at Siamsa Tíre, during the summer of 2011. She undertook a very unique and unusual art project during her residency which culminated in a performance piece, The Banquet on the 2nd of September. at midnight.
Ars Longa,Vita Brevis (Art Lives Longer than Life) is a three year project during which the Seventeenth Century Dutch masterpiece, Vase of Flowers by Jan Van Davidz de Heem will be reproduced on Sandra’s back in the form of a tattoo. A number of the tattooing sessions will be live events to which members of the public, under certain conditions, will be invited to attend. The first of these viewings was in Siamsa Tire on Friday 29th of July, and the final reveal of the finished work (a minimum of 120 hours of tattooing will be needed to complete it) will be unveiled during 2012.
Sandra’s work is intended to subvert the way in which we look at art and she emphasises the importance of seeing the resulting artwork not simply as a ‘tattoo’ but as a very considered piece of art.
GHOSTS OF THE FAITHFUL DEPARTED
Friday 3rd Jun to Saturday 29th July
David Creedon’s haunting exhibition, Ghosts of the Faithful Departed captured abandoned homes across Ireland where deceased or faraway relatives simply left their houses to the ravages of time.
David Creedon’s photographs examine the rural communities that were decimated by the impact of emigration. Now in a new millennium these people have passed on and their homes stand as a monument to a bygone age.
KERRY BICYCLE FESTIVAL - FRAME: ART CYCLES
Friday 6th to Friday 27th of May
Frame is Kerry Bicycle Festival's visual art platform, and the exhibition for 2011featured work from a selection of local, national and international artists.
The exhibition comprised of a diverse mix of painting, print, sculpture, photography, and multimedia. What unified these artworks is that they either featured, or, were inspired by the humble bicycle. This exhibition proved that not only is the bicycle the most efficient form of transportation but is also a powerful artistic muse.
THE PONDEROUS - CHOREOGRAPHY FOR A BLACKBOARD
Michael Klien and Steve Valk
26 March – 6 May
Choreography for Blackboards is a carefully constructed choreographic structure where participants, chosen locally and internationally, work on one monolithic blackboard. They follow exact, rehearsed procedures, developing and exchanging insights and individual expressions in various, immediate communicative forms, weaving their relations into a concentrated collective dance of minds. Once the choreography has come to an end a landscape of drawings is left for display. Observers were free to walk, sit, sip tea, converse and read throughout the process.
The blackboard remained as an installation between performances.
A 50 minute performance took place at the opening reception and at intervals throughout the run of the exhibition.
Choreography: Michael Klien, Dramaturgy: Steve Valk, Music: Volkmar Klien, Artistic collaboration: Jeffrey Gormley
ANOTHER LITTLE LAND
LAURA BYRNE & LAURA FITZGERALD
16 January – 11 February: Residency
11 February - 19 March: Exhibition
Another Little Land was the second joint exhibition by artists Laura Byrne and Laura Fitzgerald. This show combined various forms of media and drew together different strands in each of the artists practices. Another Little Land focused on the idea of ‘worlds within worlds,’ both in terms of the physical gallery space and more ephemeral ideas which related to searching for other spaces in an emotional sense.
The artists chose to live and work together for a five week period in order to share ideas and develop work, the final three weeks of this time were spent together leading into a joint residency within the gallery space. Here the gallery becomes an experimental testing ground where the ideas generated during the five weeks are projected and formed within the gallery walls.
These little lands presented by the artists relate to memory, narratives, the quest for other lands, spaces and the ongoing search for love.
Both artists worked in the gallery spaces at Siamsa Tíre from the16th of January until the 11th of February.
An exhibition of work by both artists was officially opened on Friday 11th of February at 6pm.
