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local local * glor, ennis, co. clare * october 2nd - 21st 2006

 

A “Local Local” is a commonly used term in Co Clare for one with a historical connection with a particular parish or locality. It is also a subtle way of defining ones place in the community whether as a newcomer to the area, or a long standing resident- a ‘local, local’. The idea for this exhibition was sparked by a chance encounter with a neighbour near my home in Kilnaboy, North Clare. Her family was named in a painting by artist Barrie Cooke in his retrospective exhibition; the Map of Kilnaboy was a detailed topographical account of the townland encountered by Cooke on arrival in Ireland in 1956 and named  many others who were important, not only to the artist, but to the lives of all in the community.  She was delighted and amazed that such local knowledge could feature in a work of art.

Darryl O' Curnain Sign

The curatorial parameters of LOCAL LOCAL are defined by choosing work that reveals different forms of local knowledge gained through intimate historical connection or through observation of specific aspects of a local place or community. A uniquely local frame of representation is formed by a vertical rather than a horizontal perspective; knowledge that goes deeper than the surface of the landscape and instead tells us something of the “…intersections of nature, culture, history, and Ideology (that) form the ground on which we stand- our land, our place, the local.”  Barrie Cooke was generous enough to lend me both Map of Kilnaboy and Sile-na Gig ii for this exhibition. The Sile-na-Gig has been made from local clay from the pipe-makers in Clarecastle and is an image of the carving which straddles the church in Kilnaboy, also marked on his map.

 

Gabriel Casey is a craftsman who has coppiced local trees in Kilshanny to make his chairs. From the same locality Tom Molloy gathered and drew, 96 oak leaves, alluding to both individuality and commonality, in an objective, deadpan manner. On loan from the Irish Museum of Modern art there are 16 of them in this exhibition. Blaise Drummond reframes the lie of the land from his dog’s perspective using the simple device of the limits of the dog’s radius to refer to the circular impulse to order nature. Adventures in contentment. The group of paintings and photographs by Deirdre O’Mahony, Viscaux reference different art historical genres to document  and re-present signs of ecological stress in lake Inchequin near her home in Clare.

 

Joanne Hynes and Miriam Cuddy are both emerging artists with a passionate commitment to their locality. Both artists present different aspects of the changing face of rural communities in the boom economy of 2006.  Jim Vaughan’s series, Local News, examines the experience of living in a small village in the west coast of Connamara. Padraig Murphy is a photographic artist whose work also deals with issues around his home place of Co Kerry and another artist from Kerry, Darryl Ó Curnáin shows a documentary which looks at the effect of his provocative public art intervention, Sign , which appropriated the iconic Hollywood sign to comment on the re/naming of Dingle, An Daingain.

Ruby Wallis Poppy

Ruby Wallis photographs the lives of those who have left urban environments in an attempt to raise families with more space and freedom and The Reverand Lucius O’Brien’s watercolours made while on holiday in Kilkee Co Clare document the seaside resort at a time of rapid change town in the late Nineteenth century.

Lippard, Lucy R The Lure of the Local-senses of place in a multicentered society. The new Press 1997

Local Local is curated by Deirdre O' Mahony. O’Mahony was born in Limerick and studied at the RTC Galway, St Martins School of Art, (BA) and the Crawford College (MA), Cork. She is currently undertaking an MPhil/PhD by research at the University of Brighton. Selected solo exhibitions include Viscaux, Galway Arts Festival 2006, Wall, Context Gallery Derry and Limerick City Gallery of Art, 2002 and WRAP Galway Arts Center and Fairfield University USA 2001.

Awards include an international Pollock-Krasner Foundation fellowship 1995; studio bursaries from the Arts Council/ An Chomhairle Ealaionn in 1997/2001, Clare County Council 2004/5 and a further Arts Council Professional Development and Training bursary in 2006.

She is a Lecturer in Painting at the Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology Ireland and GMIT coordinator of the Shifting Ground partnership project with Clare County Council.