Art Path

Friday free due to conferrings so took the opportunity to head to Dublin to see two art events.

One was called VUE and I had got a mail from the RHA with an invite to this (let's not get too excited here -I think the invite was sent to everyone on their mailing list) - it is a new a event (2nd year), being an art fair with about twenty galleries showing.
I would have to admit that past experience of art fairs has not been great, but I was amazed at this. The very best of contemporary work in Ireland and some from England was on show and a lot of it was impressive. One relatively new gallery from Dublin -Oonagh Young -was showing an English artist Amy Stephens whose work I loved:

Icelandic Glow by Amy Stephens

 

This picture really doesn't do her justice because this is a 3D piece, the yellow section being made of  flock - I would go out of my way to see more of this woman's work.

(By the way, I checked with her by email and she was happy to have this published):

Here are some other pictures from the show:

 

 

 

The other exhibition was a major retrospective of Alice Maher at IMMA in Earlsfort Terrace and this was a perfect demonstration of how there need be no limits to an arists work.

 

 

This, again, is a relatively poor photo taken at VUE but is representative of work in IMMA where no photos were allowed. Scale is hard to judge from this but in fact it is about nine feet high and is a charcoal drawing of hair, of which she did quite a lot at one stage. I happen to know the artists brother and he told me that when she was doing these she had him and other family members collecting hair from barbers and hairdressers so that she could make models from which to draw.

She had some animations there and now with my very limited experience of same, I really appreciate the amount of work that has gone into her pieces.

I think I will revist this exhibition before it finishes.

 

We are constanly being exhorted to think outside the box, Here is an example of same: