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Marianne Slevin // On and Off The Wall

Exhibition runs from 17th March - 15th April.
Opening reception Friday 16th March, 7.30-9.30pm 


Marianne Slevin's practice draws inspiration from Zen, Alchemy, Activism, Shamanism, Pilgrimage and Gross National Happiness.

Her methods and materials hover between disciplines. Wary of the definition of describing herself as a ‘visual artist’, Slevin plays with materials and disciplines, merging the unexpected and inventing new combinations that bridge method of making and seeing.

Using found objects and accidental discoveries, she sifts through her source material spontaneously, intuitively omitting what is not vital in each and adding what's left together to expose something new, constantly expanding and pairing.

For this exhibition Slevin uses abandoned Spanish bank statements, piles of rubble, and a durational wall drawing of the tiny Vertigo Angustior snail, the endangered species that prevented a highly–contested sea wall from being built at the DonaldTrump-owned Doonbeg Golf Course.

Slevin trained originally as a painter and mark maker. While she is nostalgic for the time of “art for art's sake” and deeply inspired by Abstract Expressionism, she carries this past into the universe she finds herself in today, a universe in need of so much more. She uses art as a way of connecting to her environment, both people and landscape, microcosm and macrocosm.

Through her artwork she explores ideas around trust, frequently handing over control. In her most recent exhibitions One Fine Day (held from sunrise to sunset in January in her West Clare garden), she handed over control to the weather. In A Weeks Work - Prints of Life she trusted in people to feed her and her family for the next week, from the donations given at the exhibition for a week’s work. In February this year she practiced A Month Of Good Intentions allowing her life and art to become even more open and inseparable.

She and her husband have also opened a permanent bar and exhibition space at their home, the Funny Little Gallery, where people can help themselves to a drink and sit with the art while nobody is watching what they do. Donations are welcome.