I was happy to be selected for this year’s Artworks 2024 ‘Behind the Curtain’ at VISUAL Carlow as part of Carlow Arts Festival. The exhibition, which runs until the 25th August, is shown alongside a solo show by Ulla von Brandenburg, who was also on the selection panel. The opening took place on the 6th June and I was delighted to be one of the recipients of this year’s five Artworks Prizes of €1,000 for my film ‘Tonight at the Magic Theatre’ (2017), shot on Super 8 in the forest and at an old wooden theatre in Sweden with a soundtrack by Sofia Ek. It was previously shown in my solo exhibition ‘The Last Wilderness’ at Galway Arts Centre and The Dock, Carrick-on-Shannon in 2017 and it was great to revisit it again for this theatre-themed exhibition.
This year’s exhibition will consider hallmarks of theatre, film and performance traditions such as masking, costume, set-building, role-playing, becoming other and transformation. This thematic is drawn from the practice of visual artist Ulla von Brandenburg, who is presenting Under Water Ball, a solo exhibition in VISUAL alongside Behind the Curtain, and from the work of Cornelis Norbertus Gijsbrechts, a 17th century Flemish painter who specialised in trompe-l’oeil works. Gijsbrecht’s work Reverse of a Framed Painting (c.1670) has been argued to be the earliest work of conceptual art.
Artists invited to participate and chosen from the open call are:
Andreas Kindler von Knobloch, Anja Buchheister, Cecilia Danell, Gillian Lawler, Jane Hughes, Julie Lovett, Kathy Tynan, Liam O’Callaghan, Lucy Sheridan, Mia Shattock, Miriam O’ Connor, Nollaig Molloy, Olga Anacka, Rachel Fallon, Richard Malone, Siobhan McDonald, Sorcha McNamara and Tobi Balogun.
The selection panel consisted of; VISUAL’s Curator Benjamin Stafford and Learning Curator Clare Breen; Carlow Arts Festival’s Creative Producer Orlaith Tracey; visual artist Ulla von Brandenburg, and playwright, theatre-maker and cabaret artist Pea Dinneen.
