FÁILTE | WELCOME

Fáilte and welcome to the Carrickahowley Gallery’s Bealtaine Exhibition. This show, curated by Robin Savage and Chris Gray, features the work of Eamon Colman, Judy Carroll Deeley, Susan Early, Derval Freeman, and Sinead Lawless. We hope you enjoy the work of these fine artists.

Eamon Colman

Judy Carroll Deeley

Susan Early

Derval Freeman

Sinead Lawless

The Ros Tapestry

Savage | Curator's Notes

This exhibit juxtaposes the work of five Irish contemporary artists working in different media and in divergent creative practices, from printmaking in Susan Early’s aquatints to Derval Freeman’s “abstract expressionism,” to Eamon Colman’s abstractions of imaginary fictional landscapes, to Judy Carroll Deeley’s collages, to Sinead Lawless’ experiments in chromatic portraits and figurative impastos. Such breadth certainly highlights the various creative impulses of contemporary art in the present moment, demanding new approaches through overlayed and reinvented techniques and materials—a kind of contemporary re-imagining perfect for this Bealtaine festival and the energies of spring. And although they seem so disparate, perhaps a common thread runs through them all in terms of such re-imaginings and re-awakenings as we all create new visions despite the difficulties of the past two years. More specifically, however, all five artists work with the very idea of energy and what we might call “environments.” From Susan Early’s prints of lighthouses and coastal scenes, prints which seem to magnify the relationship of light and contrast to the land itself and to a kind of quiet, brooding vision of structures on the border between land and sea, human and natural, architecture and organic pattern, to Derval and Eamon’s abstract “fetes galantes” which create imaginary environments and figural spectacles of color and form, to Sinead’s fascinating use of color and mark that populates portraits which become almost composite settings, to Judy’s recreation of personal and historical environments and the previously erased figures that populate them, each artist plays in worlds of multiple perspectives and multiple imagings. This is true in the very process of their iteration, from prints that create “editions” of images to eruptions of any fixed point of perspective in Eamon and Derval’s overlays and “uncoverings,” to the emergence of the human as a conglomeration of painterly brushmark and color relations in Sinead’s portraits, to the mixed media collages of Judy’s “re-memorying.” In all of them, the image is a composite of multiplicity, of interdependencies, and of a true “heteroglossia”—a many-voiced environment of possibility. This, it seems to us at Carrickahowley Gallery, is the very essence of Bealtaine and the renewal of spring. And, in such difficult times, we hope that these explorations of jubilant “seeing” lifts your spirits, makes you reconsider your own relationship to the many things that comprise our being in the various “worlds” that constantly create our co-inhabited space. None of us is alone in our world, and none of us is singular—we are all composite selves and environments, and the link that unites us is the energies of the creative act called Life. Here’s to our renewed commitment to such Life!

Thanks to all of our participating artists for, quite literally, making this Spring come alive. Special thanks to Eamon Colman who—as a very distinguished Aosdana member and Irish art legend—unflinchingly offered to headline this exhibit. Go raibh mile maith agat.

Robin Savage
Carrickahowley Gallery

Eamon Colman

Colman | Artist Statement

Adopting an ethnographic approach, Monument, a series of 24 paintings on un-stretched linen, conflates forgotten histories with a contemporary sense of belonging. These visualise an experienced and fictional landscape; the particularity of the locale is embedded in cultural beliefs and thus reflected in this series. Monument is a characterisation of something physical, a shrine that is fluid, a space and subjective place for navigating potentiality of the local narratives of identity, history, politics and economy together emphasising a unique and particular position.

Biography

Eamon Colman was born in Dublin in 1957. He is an elected member of Aosdána since 2007 in recognition of his major contribution to Irish culture. His professional career spans from 1979, having created nearly forty solo exhibitions presented nationally and internationally. In 1997, he was invited to host a major mid-term retrospective exhibition of his work entitled ‘Post Cards Home’ at the Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin at the age of 39 years. This was accompanied by a monograph on his work by writer and art critic Brian Mc Avera entitled ‘Dreams from The Lion’s Head, The Work of Eamon Colman’ published by Four Fields Press. A 25-year retrospective of his work is featured in a substantial publication by Gandon Editions, Kinsale: ‘Profile 25 – Eamon Colman’ (2006). In 1989, he won the First Prize Painting Award in EVA International; in 2001 First Prize Painting Award in Eigse, Carlow Arts Festival; in 2002, he was the first Irish artist to be awarded Full Fellowship Award from the Vermont Studio Centre, USA; in 2005, he won a CCAT Interreg Major Award for touring an exhibition in Wales, UK and in 2018 he was awarded a Culture Ireland GB18 Award. His work has been included in exhibitions representing contemporary Irish art in Brussels, Denmark, France, Spain, UK, Hong Kong, Canada and USA. His work can be viewed in his representative gallery: Solomon Fine Art, Balfe Street, Dublin 2.

eamoncolman.com

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Judy Carroll Deeley

Deeley | Artist Statement

The Wire Factory is part of my project Women and Work which explores the work undertaken by women inside and outside the home over the last century. It focuses on the resourcefulness of Irishwomen in creating opportunities to earn money to support their families in spite of discriminatory employment legislation. This project is based on recently uncovered source materials in my father’s old house in south inner city Dublin, and points to the importance of these resources in helping us to understand the past.

Biography

Judy Carroll Deeley’s professional art practice encompasses painting, drawing, collage, mixed media, installation and collaborative projects. Through these media she responds to aspects of our world that she cares deeply about. Her work is in collections of the Office of Public Works, The Central Bank, The Ballinglen Arts Foundation and in many private collections. In 2021 she awarded an Irish Arts Council Agility Award. She is a member of Visual Artists Ireland.

judycarrolldeeley.com

Instagram: @judy.carroll.deeley

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Susan Early

Early | Artist Statement

Susan is an Architect and Printmaker, currently based in Graphic Studio Dublin, producing etchings in aquatint, drypoint and Japanese water-based woodblock (mokuhanga). She is a member of The Watercolour Society of Ireland. She also works as Studio Administrator and Company Secretary for Graphic Studio Dublin, and has curated a number of print exhibitions for Studio members.

Susan’s fine-art prints record Irish urban and coastal landscapes. Structures, buildings and the topography of a landscape, studied in the context of their immediate environment are all explored. The built and natural environment defined by the sea is of particular interest, producing studies of lighthouses, ships, skylines and built landmarks against a moving surface of sea, a recognisable landscape or a coastal view. Her etchings often refer to specific places around Dublin Bay or the Irish coast with a continuing interest in travelling and recording lighthouses in print from urban ports to wilder Atlantic western coasts. A long term aim is to produce a collection of lighthouse etchings from the east and west coasts of the Atlantic Ocean.

Recent exhibitions include the Royal Hibernian Academy & Royal Ulster Academy Annual exhibitions; Kanreki at The Model Sligo and IMC at Nara, Japan, The Watercolour Society annual exhibitions and internationally in Europe, USA and Canada. Her work is exhibited regularly at Graphic Studio Gallery, Dublin. Susan’s work is in national and international collections, including The National Library, OPW, University of Limerick, Fingal County Council and The National Botanic Gardens, Dublin as well as international private collections. She has been supported by Fingal County Council & Dun Laoghaire Rathdown County Council / Creative Ireland.

An original fine-art print is a work of graphic art which has been conceived by the artist to be realised as an original work of art, rather than a copy of a work in another medium.

These prints are made by etching an image onto a copper plate. An aquatint dust is applied to the plate, the plate is alternately stopped out and immersed in acid, to create a series of light and dark tones on the plate. To print, the plate is inked up, often in layers of colours and the top surface wiped clean. Dampened, acid-free paper is laid over the inked up plate and it is run through a traditional printing press, creating an impression, or print. The printed image that results is the exact reverse of the image on the plate. The indent of the plate appears on the paper.

Unlike paintings or drawings, prints usually exist in multiple impressions, each of which has been created from the re-inked plate. The set is called an edition. The process of printing the edition is therefore just as important to the authenticity of a print as the act of inscribing the image onto the plate. Each print is individually re-inked and printed by hand at Graphic Studio Dublin.

susanearlyartist.com

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Derval Freeman

Freeman | Artist Statement

My style of painting leans towards abstract expressionism and I am inspired by nature, life’s experience and often the events of the cosmos. Although my work is not necessarily about space and astronomy, I have always been interested in it from childhood years and it grew more during the first lockdown back in 2020. Throughout the months, I felt as much a need to go out stargazing and photographing our night skies, as much as I did the need to go out on walks in nature. I also began to embrace colour in my work during COVID times too. I discovered a true passion and curiosity for colour which has taken my work through a significantly new direction that I am currently embarking upon.

My paintings almost always start with the drawing where I begin with a flow of abstract, expressive drawing in pencil and charcoal. As the drawings form they become figurative where gestures of line and shape naturally meet.  I layer upon the drawings with a mix of colour washes and oils mixed in cold wax, where the composition is built upon.  I am interested in how the under drawing dictates the layers of paint and my endeavors are to create a universal balance through the play of colour and light.

I never really think too much about what I want a painting to look like at the end but rather let it happen as naturally as possible. However, the solving of problems that are created as the work progresses become the goal. When a work becomes too much, I abandon it for a while and make smaller pieces which often inform the larger ones. Each different size of canvas, surface or medium I work with result in very different outcomes and as a painter I am driven by this.

Music is very much part of my painting too, it affects how I paint and I don’t think I have ever painted without it. I listen to all types and have many different playlists but ambient soundscapes are what I listen to most when I am painting. It allows me to keep my mind clear of outside thoughts and focus entirely on what is happening on the canvas.

I am often told by people that my paintings look like they, the viewer, are looking down over something from an elevated perspective, like looking down on maps of sorts, which intrigues me because in many ways I often see the world from a ‘zoomed out’ effect and for me that puts a lot of things into perspective. I would hope my paintings keep the viewer engaged and draw the eye in on a journey throughout the canvas, of their own interpretation that empathies with some small part of themselves.

Biography

I grew up in Nenagh, County Tipperary and around the time of my leaving cert my family and I relocated to the countryside in County Clare just outside Limerick City. After graduating from Limerick School of Art and Design 1996, I painted on and off over a number of years wherever my personal life would allow. I took up painting full time over 7 years ago at my home studio in Co. Wicklow where I fell in love with and have settled the past number of years.

I have exhibited in several solo and group shows throughout the years and the highlight of exhibitions so far are being an invited artist to various group shows within the past 2 to 3 years with Hamilton Gallery, Sligo. Some include Eva Gore Booth, Among School Children, Meditations in Time of Civil War and currently St. Brigids Day exhibition 2022.

Another highlight is being one of the winners of the Enlighten artist group initiative 2021 and runner up on multiple other submissions to the same project with Hambly and Hambly Gallery, Enniskillen.

I am also very happy to say that I have been awarded an artist residency in March 2022 by Noelle Campbell Sharp at her artist retreat in Cill Rialaig, Co. Kerry. Later towards the end of this year I look forward to a solo at Easter Snow Gallery, Seamus Ennis Gallery in Naul, Co. Dublin.

dervalfreeman.com

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Sinead Lawless

Lawless | Artist Statement

I created this six-piece collection, titled Impermanence, to satisfy an urge to go bigger with my portraits. These are close to life-size. Also I worked with cold wax medium as a way to get the desired tactility and visual texture. I enjoy working this way, it makes me feel very connected to my model.

Colour excites me. I enjoy studying the colours on the edges of things. I see tiny rainbows playing on the shoulders of people or around the leaves of a tree. I am a synaesthete and colours have associations for me. My brushmarks are indicative of my emotion at the time of painting and texture plays a big part. I like the challenge of working with a limited palette.

Biography

Sinead Lawless is a painter living and working in Dublin, Ireland.

Her fascination with colour is apparent in her chromatic, impasto portraits and she explores themes which include introspection, illness/disease, neurodiversity, synaesthesia and somatisation.

Sinead has no formal art training but has attended many workshops to help her to build her skills. She works predominantly in oils.

Sinead has most recently exhibited at Mall Galleries and the Royal Hibernian Academy and is a professional member of Visual Artists Ireland and the Dublin Art Society. Sinead also teaches at the Schoolhouse for Art in Enniskerry.

sineadlawless.com

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FEATURETTE | THE ROS TAPESTRY

This season we want to highlight other arts and projects in Ireland that contribute to education and community, just as we have in our previous Featurettes. However, this time, the project is a singular project that encompasses the work of hundreds of artists under the direction of the Bernstorff sisters, Ann and Alexis, who are overseeing the creation of a historical tapestry that is heralded as “the largest of its kind in Europe.” The Ros Tapestry imagines the somewhat buried histories of the Wexford coast and the Norman Invasion of 1207. Made of a series of painted panels that are then translated into crewelwork weaving (traditional forms of stitching), the tapestry rivals the Bayeux Tapestry in its historical focus and in its epic spectacle.

More importantly, perhaps, the Bernstorff sisters have insisted that the weavers and workers on the tapestry hail from local regions depicted, and their enormous crew (some estimate a hundred and eighty weavers) is comprised of local women who have been overshadowed for too long and whose artistry will now be highlighted by the communal effort. As the main website declares proudly:

“The story of the making of the Tapestries begins with a group of courageous women living in Fethard-on-sea on the Wexford coast responding to a call for embroiderers. This group did in fact start on the high seas, as the panel entitled ’Evening; The lighthouse at Hook Head’ was stitched by them. As a sense of local ownership was important it was decided that as far as possible each panel would be stitched by groups living in the locality of the historical event.

Technically the style of embroidery used on the Tapestry is known as crewelwork. This is the use of stitches such as long and short, stem stitch, couching, bullion and French knots in woollen thread on linen cloth. These stitches are practised by each embroiderer on a sampler and then adapted and played with to bring liveliness and expression to the imagery within the design.

The Ros Tapestry uses traditional stitches in a descriptive way to create a sense of volume, movement and texture and the scale of the designs have pushed us to be inventive and adventurous and exacting in our use of techniques. Not only the scale but the dramatic viewing points created within the compositions demand deep consideration of stitch direction and the fall of light on an area of work in order to maintain a sense of the strong and ambitious perspectives.

Over 150 people from Wexford, Waterford, Carlow, Kilkenny, Offaly, Wicklow, Cork and even Bristol and Essex have been involved. Camaraderie and an ‘esprit du coeur’ is at the very heart of the project as is the desire to be involved with the making of something that is going to endure.” (www.rostapestry.ie)

Carrickahowley Gallery urges viewers to visit the website and learn more about this amazing project and its creative team. It is art that demonstrates how we are all “stitched” together and to our various histories in ways that celebrate the very heart of Bealtaine and collective renewal.