Category Archives: Art

Uisce agus beatha – Galway City Museum

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Cover of the exhibition catalogue

During the excitement of the Volvo Ocean Race in Galway it would have been easy to overlook the opening of a new exhibition in the Galway City Museum. The exhibition called Uisce agus beatha – Water and life – was opened by the new mayor Cllr. Terry O’Flaherty on Thursday the 5th July. It was curated by Jim Higgins Galway city’s heritage officer and was a joint initiative between the heritage office and the Galway City Museum.

The exhibition is a celebration of people, places, boats and water and was ideally suited to coincide with the Volvo Ocean Race. It consists of fifty photographs contributed by the people of Galway in response to an appeal by the museum and the heritage office. The photographs are a reflection on the central place of water in the history and culture of Galway city. The photographs chosen for the exhibition are largely unknown and are personal and local memories of all things and people water related. It is a simple exhibition consisting of a series of large format unframed photographs grouped together and hung against the white walls of the Galway City Museum. It is perhaps this simplicity and the personal nature of the photographs which makes it so compelling.

Group of Photographs from Uisce agus beatha

The photographs range in date from the 1890’s to the 1990’s and includes some early images of the docks and the claddagh. With the river, lake and sea, water has played a huge part in the economic life of Galway city and as Jim Higgin’s reflects in his introduction to the exhibition catalogue ‘it is difficult now to believe the extent of the trade and transport which once existed on Lough Corrib’.

The head of the River Corrib, galway, 1980s. Photograph courtesy of Martin Canavan

Some of my favourite photographs from the exhibition reflect the sporting side of the association with water. The colourful depiction of the Galway head of the river and the energy seeping out of the black and white photograph of the currach racing held during the an Tóstal Ireland at Home festival in 1957 stood out for me. However, it is hard also not to be taken by the beautiful photographs of Galway hookers being gracefully propelled by the wind.

Photographs from uisce agus beatha in the foyer of the Glaway City Museum

The photographs exhibited are only some of the hundreds received from the public. There are plans to post all these photographs on the Glawy City Museum website during heritage week in August and the Uisce agus Beatha exhibition will be on display throughout the summer in the museum. The exhibition is upported by Galway City Council, The Heritage Council and Foras na Galeilge. It is well worth a look.

An Interview with Julie Feeney

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Julie Feeney and Mark Duley in St Nicholas cathedral at the launch of the new Schola Cantorum.

I had the pleasure of catching up with Julie Feeney after last nights launch of the Schola Cantorum in St Nicholas Church in Galway. Julie had just landed back in Ireland after a very successful stint performing in New York at the Irish Arts Center. The New York Times gave her a rave review and she seems to have really loved the energy in the city. Julie also tells a wonderful story about how she ended up playing a couple of shows in Canada and having in her own words ‘the best week of her life’. This accomplished composer singer and producer has a lot on her plate over the coming months and is presently  composing an opera and also has a  tour of Ireland to prepare and organise in November. In the middle of all this activity she has also just recorded her third album which is due out at the end of the year.

The GMIT Graduate Art Show

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The cover of the exhibition catalogue

The 2012 Graduate Art Degree Show was held on the Cluan Mhuire campus at Galway Mayo Institute of Technology from the 6th – 19th June. The art show is a fixture in the Galway art calendar and as usual the exhibition was a great showcase for the talented students that complete degree courses in the Centre for the Creative Arts and Media. The exhibition was opened amid huge excitement by Megs Morley an artist and curator and ran for a week attracting thousands of visitors.

The Cluain Mhuire building is a huge institutional edifice which was once a redemptorist monastery and the wide corridors, high ceilings and large windows make for an interesting exhibition space where the individual exhibit spaces sometimes need to be searched out and found. The exhibition was broken up into five separate artistic forms; ceramic, paint, print sculpture and textiles however some of the individual art pieces on display could not be so neatly categorised and many included video and film, installations and performance.

Outside Cluain Mhuire GMIT

There was an eclectic mix of styles and everyone who came to look and explore the exhibition couldn’t fail to find something that they enjoyed or related to but also things that challenged and at times maybe even repulsed. The themes being explored by the 78 exhibiting artists ranged from the personal to the overtly political and explored concepts such as sense of place, environment, nature, social issues and all aspects of the human condition. What was common to all of the exhibits was an underlying honesty and lack of cynicism and a willingness to challenge and to be challenged. That coupled with exuberance and energy made for a stimulating, thought provoking exhibition.

Gerardine Quin the head of the Centre for Creative Arts and Media points out in the foreword to the exhibition catalogue that ‘the exhibition is a culmination of four years of hard work and study’. For all of the students the degree show was their chance to launch themselves into the world as artists.

I visited on the last day of the exhibition and met with some of the artists and caught many of them in a reflective mood as the exhibition was ending and they faced into the future.

Craig McLeod

Before getting inside Cluain Mhuire I bumped into Craig McLeod one of the exhibiting artists and he was good enough to share his thoughts with me and his exciting plans for a mobile residency.

Lisa Jane McGann

Exploring the upper floors of the exhibition I met Lisa Jane McGann who talked with me about her childhood being the inspiration for her work.

Later while continuing to explore the exhibition I found Craig McLeod’s work (who I had talked with earlier) and was extremely taken with it. There were a series of sepia toned photographs reproduced on glass. Craig was exploring the concept of transparency and his work was generating a great reaction from the visitors exploring the exhibition. I chatted to Moe one of the visitors about the Craig’s work and also about some of the sculpture pieces we had seen downstairs.

Some of the highlights of the show for me were the sculpture pieces and I luckily caught up with two of the artists responsible for some of that remarkable work. Noel Arrigan and Jessica Buckley were manning the front desk and they gave me their thoughts on their motivation behind pursuing an art degree and their plans for the future.

A forest of crutches

Noel’s work was an exploration of the healing powers of Ireland’s holy wells. His installation featured a forest of crutches which took inspiration from an old photograph of pilgrims at Doon well in 1903 where because there were no trees at the well people put rags or objects from loved ones on abandoned crutches as a way of leaving an intention or prayer so the sick could be cured. The installation also featured a subtle but strangely moving multimedia piece which featured a video of a head made form ice melting in combination with an actual water drip falling into a heated metal bowl which caused a fizz. A description does it no justice as it needs to be experienced.

Jessica Buckley

Jessica Buckley took me on a tour of the installation where she performed her work during the Graduate Degree Show in the GMIT.

It was great to see such brilliant talent on display. There are photographs of some of the pieces that caught my eye over on Flickr and I’d like to wish all of the artists the best of luck.