July | 2015 | brayarts

‘Lifting The Bell Jar’

An International Group Exhibition
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From Monday 17th August to Sunday 30th August 2015

Signal Arts Centre is delighted to be exhibiting the work of five artists who, though based in Ireland, are originally from Scotland, Germany and South Africa, with one artist from Cork. This is the first group exhibition of this international collective and the work draws on a range of disciplines: textiles, mixed media, drawing, ceramics, photography and painting.
Whilst grounded in technically rigorous approaches, the work is nevertheless characterised by open-ended processes which suspend self-evident readings. Lifting the Bell Jar is a playful meditation on nostalgia, the act of re-membering and the construction of fabricated histories

Pulsing through the veins of the nation of Ireland is a desire for the handcrafted. Our ancestors were surrounded by such items. Articles of function, form and decoration were skilfully constructed by hand – from the intricately carved eighteenth century Penal crosses to lofty tables and chairs.
The contemporary work of the artists and craftspeople in Spontaneous Order was made with the same sensitivity and attention to detail as an Irish craftsperson would have used centuries ago. Each represented artist in the exhibition shows supreme respect for her medium and this is expressed in the quality of the pieces in the exhibition.

“We are an international collective of five artists based in Cork who work across a variety of disciplines. We naturally inspire each other so the work is an outcome of this ?cross-fertilization’, where we both unconsciously and consciously respond to each other’s output.”

“Our proposed show, Lifting the Bell Jar, is a playful meditation on the notions of memory, nostalgia and the imagination, in particular with fabricated histories. We look at the juxtaposition of the hermetically sealed and open-ended, the historical and nostalgic, the identifiable and what seeps out from the glass domes of categorisation.”

Sabine Weissbachs – current body of work focuses on collage in mixed media. By juxtaposing patterns with randomness, subverting narratives and following solely the internal logic of the image Weissbach creates works that are formally resolved but which, in terms of content, can leave the viewer somewhat puzzled.

Frank McGrath – sees his work as painting with the camera. McGrath combines traditional and contemporary methods of the photographic process, the resulting images evoke a sense of nostalgia creating a past that never was.

Christian Buchner’s – mixed-media drawings are a meditation-from-afar on gardening in Johannesburg, how this seemingly banal, enjoyable, everyday activity, on reflection, becomes entangled in the morass of ‘post’-colonial ambiguity. The resulting drawings are vestiges or traces of their subject, with allusions of whimsy and melancholy.

Helen Doherty – has always been interested in the relationship between identity and place, in particular the role which culture plays in moulding who we become. As a ceramicist and fine artist Doherty’s work concerns myth-making: by drawing on the past, yet bearing witness to the present, she tells stories to both ask and answer certain questions.

Lesley Stothers – work is characterised by a sensitivity to materials and scale. Working with textile techniques such as knitting, crochet, hand and machine stitching, Stothers also works in paper, wire and plastic, deconstructing book formats so that ‘like a journal chronicling a troubled life, it is also a nod to the act of memory and the way it can deteriorate over time.’

Opening Reception: Thursday 20th August 2015, 7-9pm
All welcome!

Gallery Opening Hours:
Monday to Friday: 10am -1pm/2pm – 5pm
Saturday/Sunday: 10am – 5pm