Off the wall artworks
By the time you read this, the exhibition space in the Townhall Art Centre Cavan will be a pristine space brimming with wonderful artworks.
When the Celt attended the space last Thursday, it was brimming with wonderful artworks vying for attention on the floor. Curators Joe Keenan and Sally O’Dowd were busy unpacking the work and deciding the wall space where each would work best for the exhibition titled ‘Love this Place’.
The exhibition is essentially a snapshot of the work undertaken by Belfast artists based at the ‘The Vault’, which at their old premises on Tower Street numbered over 100 practitioners. Sally discovered new friends and colleagues among the group when she left her position as an arts director in Cavan’s Townhall and headed North for a new chapter in life and career.
Some of the Killeshandra native’s work features in the show. She has focussed on the impact of ash dieback on the trees at her home in the Derries, and has even used some of the cut trees to make charcoal to create artworks.
“I have been doing studies of ash trees and ash dieback and then, I’m looking at that and,” she says leaning into a pregnant pause while the Celt guesses she will say climate change and nature collapse to close the yawning gap... “body ownership.”
It’s not what I was expecting. The exhibition catalogue says Sally “creates often absurd and socially awkward artwork”, which brings us to a Control 1 and 2 intriguing framed drawings. It is curiously awkward when you’ve been studying a drawing wondering what it is to be told it’s the artist’s under arm hair. Why that should be so, I don’t know?
“Undergrowth overgrowth is the conversation with that, but also making the connection between ways of growing,” she says of the ties between the two subjects.
Next to Sally’s work are two wonderful images created in sepia tones on glass by Laura Nelson. Joe has studied the entire array of Vault artists online and has selected his favourites for a sizeable bulk of the Cavan exhibition. These two Nelson pictures are amongst his personal favourites in the exhibition.
“There’s something very old about them and yet they are probably right up to date - they look like something from an old magazine that was found. Just visually, the colour in that one,” he says of a man standing at a front door holding a cat, “they just pop out at you.”
“But I do love Sally’s underarms as well,” he quips. “That’s a bit like nepotism!”
Another eye-catching works is by Sally’s husband, Rob Hilken.
His work will be familiar to anyone who’s driven through Killeshandra and admired the wonderful wall mural of geometric fish. In this work he has a ‘High Alert’ sign photographed at ancient fragments of woodlands in three counties in the North. The sign is in the shape of a ‘Men at Work’ sign, but a beautiful multicoloured design sits where you would normally expect a message of warning.
“They are quite arresting,” Sally correctly says.
The contrast of a caution sign, with a fun geometric design leaves you not knowing what to feel. The viewer can decide whether this is Rob throwing his hands up that there’s no point warning humanity anymore, or is he seeking out an alternative language?
Sally, who’s well placed to know surmises “it’s beware! High alert”.
“We are looking at the climate and the environment, destruction and our ability to change it, so you should be on high alert, you should be doing everything you can.”
One wonderfully fun image by Dragos Musat jumps out from amongst the rest. It depicts two grinning furry, friendly monsters in technicolour - they look like unhinged cast-offs from Sesame Street.
“It’s so off the wall,” says Joe, - a statement that’s accurate beyond the fact the picture’s lying on the floor.
“His character is completely 3D but he’s making it in a digital programme,” explains Sally of Dragos’ work.
“He told me he can get me any images of those characters from any perspective.”
Next to Dragos’ eye catching work lies lithographs and etchings by his wife and fellow artist Wilhelmina Peace. With a folkloric vibe, the images are both beautiful and slilghtly menacing.
Other work includes a beautifully curated table of objects found on the Lagan’s shoreline and abandoned spaces by videographer Jonathan Brennan, a short written piece by Mick McCullagh, and Marta Dyczkowska’s photography of buildings, which have been subtly altered to ghostly effect.