Sarah Walker Gallery has the pleasure of exhibiting artworks on paper by recent graduates Anna Gallwey, Electra Grant, Lucy Hyland, and Muireann Kelleher from CIT Crawford College of Art and Design, alongside work by Sarah Walker, Carol Healy, and Cathy Bacon. Exhibition runs until August 26th.
Each piece in the exhibition challenges our expectations of scale and structure commonly associated with works on paper. Wall hangings, sculptures, and videos demonstrate the fresh and innovative ways artists are using paper within their practices. The vibrancy of nature, the intricacies of the body, the plant, the machine; these complexities reveal themselves through the original design and display of artwork in Big Paper Show.
Cathy Bacon explores intimate moments and memories of family life. Painting with oil on gold-pigmented paper, Bacon immortalises the endearing habit of her son, who at age eleven wanted to eat oranges with reckless abandon but hated how messy the process became, and subsequently began eating oranges in the shower. By capturing these tender moments, Bacon illustrates the entirely unique habits and relationships that exist within families. Bacon completed a Bachelor’s of Art with Crawford College of Art and Design in 2016. She is presently undertaking a Master’s in Art and Process at Crawford College.
Anna Gallwey utilises printmaking to explore themes of lineage, kinship and the production of narrative. Appearing as if a timeline, her work draws upon traditional devices of storytelling such as the silhouette and the media of print. She subverts the usual understanding of narrative by presenting the viewer with abstracted forms, using patterning, repetition and mutations to hint that these ancestral narratives perhaps have their own ‘genetic code’. Gallwey is a 2018 graduate of Crawford College of Art and Design in Cork.
Electra Grant explores the themes personal identity and individuality, which she investigates through intricate charcoal drawings and video. People and how they perform their sense of self in the world is the main concern in her work. Her drawings and video focus on the great struggle of the individual to remain true to oneself in a world of critical first impressions. Grant seeks to find those fleeting moments where we are truly comfortable in our own skin. Grant is a 2018 graduate of Crawford of Art and Design in Cork.
Carol Healy responds to losing 27 mature trees in her home city of Cork after Ireland was hit with storm Ophelia. In an act to preserve the history these trees symbolized, Healy visited the remaining stumps on the roadside and made rubbings with graphite on large sheets of tracing paper. Later, she created delicate drawings with watercolour on paper that reflect her memory and physical etchings of the lost trees. The work expresses her connection to a sense of slowness, space and time.
Lucy Hyland focuses on the scar as a visual representation of the body’s mechanism of mending. It explores the significance of the highly systematic medical system, and the more enigmatic aspects of social support, in the recovery from illness and injury. It is through the creative process that she unravels and resolves her ongoing investigation into healing after illness. She practices slow, repetitive, time laden techniques, such as hand stitching and paper making, to reflect the aspect of time within the healing process. Hyland is a 2018 graduate of Crawford College of Art and Design in Cork.
Muireann Kelleher questions how technological developments are affecting human activity in general and art making in particular. The sculptural mechanism that creates her drawings is inspired by the Labour of Months, which illustrated twelve scenes of rural labour during the Medieval and Renaissance period. In addition to these drawings, Kelleher also includes a video and sound piece, emphasising the multi-sensory nature of human perception in the contemporary world. Kelleher is a 2018 graduate of Crawford College of Art and Design.
Sarah Walker creates drawings that vary in scale, emphasizing the wide range of motion and detail that make up her expressive and colourful work. The focus of her work is the natural environment; lush shrubs, deep turquoise sky and sea blends, and brightly emblazoned flowers come together to create a body of work that both reflects and enhances the natural landscape. Walker is a painter living and working on the Beara Peninsula, W. Cork. She has exhibited in numerous shows throughout Ireland and the world, and has worked in a wide array of media, including painting, drawing, and tapestry.
