Fathomless Arms, solo exhibition at Ballina Arts Centre, 2023
installation view, Fathomless Arms
Nonesuch, 2023, oil on cotton, repurposed wood frame, oil on perspex, digital prints, 92 x 120 x 19cm
detail, Nonesuch, 2023
C'mere, 2023, mixed media on repurposed wood, 22.4 x 30.2 x 1.7cm
Animal, 2023, oil and pencil on reclaimed wood, 23 x 32.8cm
Clasper, 2022, oil on reclaimed wood, 16.5 x 21cm
Casual Persuasion, 2022, oil on found wood, 20.1 x 23.1 x 1.9cm
Preverbal, 2023, oil on found wood, 14.6 x 23cm
Crevice, 2021, oil on reclaimed wood, 23 x 20.5 x 1cm
Bug-eyed, 2021, oil on reclaimed wood, 16 x 20cm
Anchorage, 2022, oil on found wood, 24.5 x 23.5cm
Aloft, adrift, 2022, oil and glue on reclaimed wood, 76 x 20 x 3cm
installation view, Fathomless Arms
Withdrawal, 2022, oil on found wood, 23.2 x 29cm
Tail Engine, 2021, oil on reclaimed wood, 23 x 20 x 2cm
Ensemble, 2023, mixed media installation, 153.6 x 95 x 26cm
Ensemble, 2023, mixed media installation, 153.6 x 95 x 26cm
A wing, a cape, a leaf, 2022, oil, gesso, chalk, pencil on reclaimed wood with frame, 60 x 76.3 x 6cm
Sleeper, 2023, oil on found wood, 15.2 x 23.5cm
My Head is Full of Flies, 2023, oil on found wood, 14.5 x 23.2cm
My Head is Full of Flies, 2023, oil on found wood, 14.5 x 23.2cm
In Repose, 2021-22, mixed media on cotton, 31.5 x 38cm
Desire (go easy), 2022, oil on reclaimed wood, 76.3 x 59.7cm
Parcels, 2021-22, mixed media on cotton, site-specific installation, dimensions variable
installation view, Fathomless Arms
installation view, Fathomless Arms
installation view, Fathomless Arms
installation view, Fathomless Arms
installation view, Fathomless Arms
Fathomless Arms
solo at Ballina Arts Centre
4 March - 29 April 2023
______________________
Fathomless Arms was an exhibition of work made between 2021-2023. It contained a gathering of material; found, reclaimed, and repurposed - assembled in such a way to construct whole painterly objects that, although largely wall-based, sit somewhere between the two and three-dimensional. The works themselves are containers of fragments, both as physical material and as painted gesture, floating in a space of suggestion, allusion and ambiguity.
The installation of the work was arranged in response to the characteristics of the gallery’s concourse space, which in itself is a kind of passage, a go-between, a threshold - also reflective of a somewhat interim moment in the artist’s career. The exhibition as a whole draws attention towards the gallery’s shape, architecture, and how and where light falls at certain times of the day.
The title is extracted from a line in Frank O’Hara’s ‘To The Harbormaster’, the opening poem of his 1957 collection Meditations in an Emergency. Tonally, this is a piece of writing that sits in an intriguing - and beautiful - space between self-assurance and uncertainty; and contains an awareness of one’s own (human) limitations.
________________________
Fathomless Arms was developed with support from The Arts Council of Ireland.
Ballina Arts Centre’s 2023 - 2026 visual arts programme was selected by Eamonn Maxwell.