Back to the Shifting Ground Home Page
DEIRDRE O'MAHONY
LOCAL GROUND - exhibition
An exhibition consisting of some of the archive material exhibited in the X-PO Kilnaboy and work leading to and concerned with the X-PO project. Particularly VISCAUX: a series engaging with the water quality in the lower Burren lakelands and water courses.
opened - WEDNESDAY 16TH JANUARY 2008
at - The GALLERY, Siamsa Tire, Tralee
above: Local Ground at Siamsa Tire
Mattie Rynne Archive: Glasses Installation X-PO prior to renovation
Mattie Rynne archive material: Peter Daffy paintings in renovated Post Office space
installation Deirdre O'Mahony
LOCAL GROUND BACKGROUND
From Wednesday 16th January the Gallery at Siamsa Tíre will be the site for a new exhibition, Local Ground, by Deirdre O'Mahony, that looks in depth at ideas the artist explored in a previous exhibition Local Local. In the Local Local exhibition, which she curated and showed at the Gallery in 2007, she examined the present reality of local rural life in the light of social and ecological changes in the west of Ireland.
In September 2007 O'Mahony re-opened and renovated the former sub-post office in Kilnaboy, Co Clare. Now named the X-PO and opened to the public since December, her aim is to reactivate the kind of incidental community exchange and contact point that was once commonly associated with the day to day business of rural Post Offices. This new exhibition documents the transformation of the space and takes the form of an installation of paintings by local artist and former postman of the area, Peter Daffy, and archive material belonging to former postmaster Mattie Rynne found in the renovation of the building . O'Mahony will also be exhibiting the series of works, Viscaux, 2004-2007, which focuses on local water quality in North Clare.
There will be a catalogue published to accompany the exhibition with an essay by Pat Cooke, Director of the MA Programme in Cultural Policy and Arts Management, Universiy College Dublin.
The exhibition opens on Wed 16th Jan at 6pm and runs until 9th Feb 2008.
For further information contact Siamsa Gallery 066 7123055
X-PO is supported by SuperValu and the Arts Council under the Once Off Projects Scheme.Biography: Deirdre O'Mahony
Deirdre O’Mahony was born in Limerick and received a BA in Fine Art (Painting) at St Martins School of Art, London and MA in Fne Art at the Crawford College, Cork. Selected exhibitions include Viscaux, Galway Arts Festival 2006, Local Local which she curated for the Shifting Ground conference in Ennis and Siamsa Tire Gallery, EV+A 2005 , Leabhar Mór na Gaeilge 2003, Wall, Context Gallery Derry and LCGA, 2002 and TULCA 2004/7. She received solo bursuries and a Ground Up comission for The Cross Land public art in rural contexts program for Clare County Council. Awards include Pollock-Krasner Foundation fellowship in 1995 and bursaries from An Chomhairle Ealaionn/ The Arts Council 1997/2001/2006 and a once-off project award in 2007. She is a Lecturer in Fine Art at Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology and was joint co-ordinator of the Shifting Ground conference in art in rural contexts 2006. She is currently undertaking a PhD in Fine Art practice at the University of Brighton in the UK.
