‘Drawing Wonder’ I, detail, chalk, algae and seawater on a concrete structure, Dunmoran Strand, Sligo, Ireland, 29th June 2019, Kiera O'Toole
The Courthouse Gallery & Studios is pleased to present Drawing de-Centered, a group exhibition by six artists, Racheal Agnew, Felicity Clear, Kevin Killen,
Melissa O' Faherty, Kiera O'Toole, Mary-Ruth Walsh. This exhibition invited the Drawing de-Centered (DdC) collective to instigate an exhibition focusing on
the diverse range of drawing practices within the collective. Drawing de-Centered will open at The Courthouse Gallery & Studios from Friday the 18th of
September for regular hours (12 noon to 5 pm, Tues - Sat), there will be no physical opening reception in line with guidance from the HSE. Please wear
a mask, use hand sanitiser and follow social distancing guidance when visiting the gallery. Please also provide contact details at reception when entering
to follow contact tracing guidelines, all materials supplied will be destroyed after three weeks.
Rachel Agnew Public Artwork
Drawing de-Centered (DdC) is a diverse, nomadic and emerging artistic platform that explores contemporary drawing practice. DdC aims to provoke and probe drawings
intrinsic and expanding qualities. Characterised by openness, embodiment, and liminality, Drawing deCentered focus on critical thinking around drawing practice and questions
what drawing is but also what can drawing be. In this exhibition of the same name Drawing deCentered, a multiplicity of practices and research interests together with a
wide-range of materiality’s that include but not limited to, the humble pencil on paper to neon lights to natural drawing materials emphasise DdC’s strength.
Racheal Agnew and Kiera O’Toole’s practice share a central concern of drawing and phenomenology in relation to the site. Agnew explores transitional spaces while
O’Toole examines the atmospheric, material, temporal and corporeal aspects of human experience. Mary-Ruth Walsh offers an exploration into the gap that exists
between 2D and 3D spaces particularly architectural spaces. Felicity Clear also considers the transition from 2D to 3D through traditional and non-traditional media.
Kevin Killen’s practice captures an individual’s journeys and movements through light while Melissa O’Faherty’s interest lies the intersection of humanities impact
on nature.
Drawing de-Centred has recently shown with international Dutch artists in ‘Beyond Drawing’ curated by Arno Kramer and reviewed by Clare E. Scott in Visual Arts
Ireland News Sheet. July 2020. https://www.drawingdecentered.- com/beyond-drawing.html
Rachael Agnew’s practise centres around the phenomenology of interstitial spaces. This is defined here as the subjective experience of empty, between,
intermediate and transitional spaces. Her work takes the form of site-specific drawing installations and interventions. Movement, light and transparency are
key elements in creating and perceiving her works.
Mary-Ruth Walsh: My practice explores public spaces from frenetic airports and shopping centres to the desolate loneliness of empty spaces. In public and domestic
spaces, it’s fascinating to see how architecture affects the way we move and behave. I’m curious about the gap between the two-dimensional drawing or blueprint of
a building and the three-dimensional materiality of the realisation of that building. What happens in that gap between the object and its two-dimensional representation
is full of promises and denials, of realities and unrealities. The drawings and blueprints are a deliberate exercise of improbability and possibility. But the subtext is also
about the substitution of real experience or real-time.
Kiera O’Toole: Why (the Site of) Drawing Matters...to me. My practice examines how humans experience the world and how the things in our world affect us as they
resound in our bodies, always and already. I'm deeply concerned about the atmospheric, material, temporal and corporeal aspects of the experience which forms and
informs my drawing practice. The embodied mark and all its complexities: diversity, directness, universality and presentness is evidence of human existence. It's a way
to experience the world and to pay attention to the everyday. My hope is to create a 'Holding Space' for a shared experience between the viewer, the drawing and the
site - which may be an art space or a non-art space or a rural or urban environment By paying attention to our intuitive and felt sense of experience, we can become
aware of the intersubjective here and now.
Kevin Killen: My practice involves capturing life through studying people’s physical space and the journeys or movements they make. Very often I physically walk a
route myself, filming long-exposures that ‘draw’ the journey in light. I use more traditional drawing tools to translate the journey lines using the medium of neon light
that captures moments in space and time.
Melissa O’Faherty: Of particular interest to O’Faherty’s drawing practice is the phenomenon in nature and reflections of humanity's influence and attempts to control
our natural environment. ‘I'm interested in how combining photography and drawing and might direct the viewer to an exposure of the subject matter. My work is also
concerned with drawing images revealing themselves through the making process of the automatism technique, the art-making process where the subconscious is
allowed to create’.
Felicity Clear: My practice involves the intersection of line, light and perception. Drawing in a variety of mediums and in various scales is at the core. From small
two-dimensional works on paper to large sculptural installations and hand-drawn animation. The provisional nature of drawing and its other technical role in
engineering, architecture and everyday life are central reference points. Often perspective is skewed, and three-dimensional elements cast shadows which
present visual conundrums. As Francis Halsall says in ‘Drawing the line’ in Irish Arts Review autumn 2019: ‘Given the priority that Clear gives to line, the work
is often suggestive of the aesthetic forms of infrastructure, alluding as they do to maps, plans, scaffoldings and support structures. Through these allusions to
infrastructure, her meticulous and intricate constructions become highly effective metaphors for the systems that are ubiquitous in everyday life’.
Images of Exhibition:
