DIALOGUES I SCULPT, EVENTUALLY STATIC
'THIS THING A SORT OF SELF' (HOMESCHOOLING) #COVID19
2020
Dialogues I sculpt, eventually static, this thing a sort of self, made by Buttner with support from the Arts Council of Ireland COVID Response Award. Within the COVID19 lockdown parameters, Buttner addressed how art functions for most artists, how it evolves in our homes and our studios, how it has always been something done and made on the fringes. Working at the kitchen table, with her family and dog around, this work is vulnerable and disquieting, it attempts to create a dialogue between the exposition of things to hand, (folded fabrics, wire, domino wood blocks and screws), engaging exploratory, improvised methodology as the playful antithesis of convention, and social dogma, using experimental methods to provide an alternate language for discovering and articulating bodily experiences of the imposed lockdown of the COVID19 experience.
The Inaugural Janet Mullarney Open exhibition, at the Highanes Gallery, curated by Seán Kissane, Joy Gerrard and Jerome O Drisceoil, was developed to support and highlight new work by artists living in Ireland, to encourage interest and engagement with contemporary art, and to raise the profile of ambitious visual art in society, while also responding to the social constraints of the current global situation, and acknowledging that many visual artists continue to create and work, though now, many not in their studios, but in smaller spaces, and domestic environments.
The life and work of Janet Mullarney inspired this Open Submission Exhibition and the first prize was awarded to an artist Bernie Masterson. Highly Commended Recipients, Alasdair Asmussen Doyle, Susan Buttner, Laura Fitzgerald, Helena Gorey, Elaine Grainger.
Shortlist of artists; Thomas Brezing, Pauline Clancy, Jane Cummins, Amanda Doran, Marta Dyczkowska, Isadora Epstein, Áine Byrne & Bureau Bonanza, Leanne Finnegan, Harry Walsh Foreman, Saidhbhín Gibson, Kerry Guinan, John Graham, Austin Hearne, Claire Halpin, Méabh Hennelly, Margaret Doyle Hobbs, Bernadette Kiely, Sharon Kelly, Dave Madigan, Bernie Masterson, Sinead Ni Mhaonaigh, Yvette Monahan, Kevin Mooney, Elva Mulchrone, Mark McGreevy, Niamh McGuinne, Astrid Newman, Noël O’Callaghan, Suzy O’Mullane, Kiera O’Toole, Bara Palcik, Emma Roche, Grainne Smith, Padraig Spillane, Jennifer Trouton, Mieke Vanmechelen, Lee Welch, Dianne Whyte.
