I’m super excited about next week! There is a bi-monthly art event in Galway called Live@8, taking place in bar EIGHT and featuring performance and video art. Now the curators Aine Phillips, Maeve Mulrennan and Vivienne Dick have decided to bring the event on tour, so on Thursday the 5th of May the Galway art scene will be descending on Limerick’s Occupy Space gallery for an evening of performance, happenings, installation and video, all by Galway based artists.
Myself and artist Majella Dowdican were approached some time ago about doing a collaborative wall installation for the event, so we’ve been very busy lately discussing ideas and making work. Installation will commence in Limerick on Tuesday morning to be ready for the event on Thursday evening. Our pieces will be dealing with the process of making work and ideas we’ve been exploring in the studio concerning what’s real and what is not, copying, modernist thought and most importantly – the exploration of materials and their limitations.
I don’t want to say too much before the event, but my work will include 10 000 paper clips and a tribute to one of my artist heroes. I have loved the process of really immersing myself in the exploration of materials and ideas as opposed to only making finished pieces and I’ve also done a lot of reading, which has influenced my thinking when making the work, most importantly Focault’s “The order of things”.
I’ve also made some other work lately, which I will share here on the website in time. And we’ve had a number of studio visits in Engage by different curators/artists these past few weeks including Mary Conlon, Alice Maher and Megs Morley. It’s always beneficial and interesting to have people visit the studio and get their input about the work in progress, and it gives them a better insight into how you work as an artist as well.
Anybody in Ireland is most welcome to Limerick on Thursday for what promises to be a great night, and I will put up photos documenting the event for those of you who can’t make it.