PREVIOUS EXHIBITION
28.06.24 - 25.07.24
The Fair
Leanne McDonagh
Press Release
Leanne McDonagh
‘The Fair’
28th June - 25th July 2024
The Katie Lindsay Gallery is delighted to present nine works by the artist Leanne McDonagh. McDonagh’s reputation as an exciting emerging Irish artist has been growing steadily for some years now having already exhibited in Irish Museum of Modern Art, IMMA and the Glucksman, Cork
McDonagh occupies a unique position as a college-educated artist from the Travelling community. These days she is from a tiny village near Cork. With her art she likes to experiment with different methods. She tends to use several processes in one piece, piecing an image together, layer by layer. The majority of her work is photography but she also makes prints and drawings. One aspect of her photographic method is the use of a very slow shutter speed to capture distinct elements within a scene and she has become extraordinarily adept & skilled at her own technique.
Thematically, from 16, she was very aware of the unease and disparities between two communities here in Ireland - her own and settled people. Inside this context she captures fleeting moments in an abstract way that engage the viewer in an enquiry as to what might actually be happening in the image. In this way, her work explores the perceived notions and mystery that surrounds her community, constructing beguiling narratives that aim to pique the viewer so that they might examine any stereotypes they may hold about the Travelling community.
Alternatively to current documentary style photography, that is often used to represent her community and in a bleak way, McDonagh looks to an older generation of artists like the work of Jack B Yeats, Louis Le Brocquy and Nano Reid, “artists who were influenced by our way of life and intrigued by the mystery and romantic notions of Travellers”.
Through exploring the vibrancy, warmth and aliveness of her own people, in her art, McDonagh successfully feedbacks to her community who they really are.
Artist and an educator Leanne McDonagh grew up on a halting site and gained first-hand experience of the prejudices and misconceptions that society has about Travellers. McDonagh attended Crawford College of Art and Design. She has exhibited nationally and internationally. She is the Traveller Education Coordinator for Cork Institute of Technology. In 2020 McDonagh illustrated the short story book “Why The Moon Travels” written by a fellow Traveller, Oein De Bhairduin.
PREVIOUS EXHIBITION
22.06.23—15.07.23
Drawing on MindScape
Shanti Panchal
The Katie Lindsay Gallery is excited to announce Shanti Panchal’s first exhibition in Ireland of 18 watercolours of varying sizes.
Panchal defines his painting technique: “I use watercolour on thick, rough paper; applying many layers; mixing colours directly on the paper, scratching and scraping.“
It’s a slow process resulting in textured, velvet-like surfaces.
With peerless craftsmanship the artist combines the old with the new citing influences from Indian miniaturist painting, Buddhist frescoes and medieval Christian icons; Mark Rothko’s large abstract colour fields and the candied backdrops of Francis Bacon.
Each work demonstrates a subtle blending of the poetic forces from two cultures; east and west; he combines different aesthetic values i.e. the symbolism of Jain miniature paintings with western art styles like abstract expressionism.
In the larger works his figures occupy empty theatrical spaces. A vacant chair or a bulk of a wall serve, not only as pictorial devices, to point to something; an absence maybe or ‘a void.’ All this conjuring urgent, timely questions about our identities, nationhood and sense of belonging: Where is home? Do we carry our homes with us? Does home reside in our imagination?
Panchal was born in 1951 in North Gujarat, Mesar ; a small village in India. In 1978, after completing five years of study at the Sir JJ School of Art in Mumbai where he trained in western art and Indian miniatures, he won a British Council award to study for two years at the Byam Shaw School of Art in the UK.
His talents were soon acknowledged. 1980’s London was entering a radical mood and with the New Labour government’s drive to be inclusive he was commissioned by the GLC ( Greater London Council ) to make a pro-diversity mural celebrating Asian and Black culture alongside (Turner Prize winner 2017 / Tate Modern 2022) Lubiana Hamid, Gavin Jantjes and Keith Piper ; only Panchal’s mural survives.
In 2022 a second major public art work was commissioned from the artist by Art on The Underground , TFL for Brixton station and launched on the 17th of November 2022.
Shanti Panchal is a recipient of many prizes including the BP Portrait award in 1991, The prestigious John Moores Prize , twice, in 1989 and 2018 . He has been artist in residence at the British museum in 1994 and held solo shows at The Museum of Modern Art Oxford 1993, Pitzhanger Manor in 2000 and Chelmsford Museum 2007 and more recently with the Ben Uri 2020; to mention only a few.
PREVIOUS EXHIBITION
06.08.23—31.08.23
The Revolution is SOFT
Grace McMurray
Katie Lindsay Gallery is pleased to announce The Revolution is SOFT, an exhibition of new work by Grace McMurray.
McMurray’s highly personal practise involves traditionally female activities like sewing, knitting, weaving and patchwork. As the artist makes, stitches, knits and patches she doesn’t conceal her mistakes but emphasises them with very visible repairs. These are stories of individual and collective healing.
“Mending is about the journey travelled, not reinstating the impossible perfection of the new.”
A key piece in this exhibition is Facade; a damaged blue ceramic plate and a gift to the artist. McMurray draws on the Japanese practise of kintsugi and the plate is repaired with gold leaf. Kintsugi is the practise of repairing broken pottery with precious materials such as gold. As a philosophy, kintsugi is ‘an embracing’ of the flawed or the imperfect.
In a similar vein, many of the knitted works Field, Halfway There, Noise, Seamless & Verse, are created from the reverse side. The artist reveals the underside, the looser threads. It is through this process of uncovering and revealing that McMurray points to the worth and beauty in the seemingly worthless. At the same time she questions society’s expectations and the pressure to be a certain way. Themes of perfectionism are echoed again in the two pieces Nerves and Tarnished. Positioned opposite each other in the space, they allude to mirrors (they are the same size as mirrors) these two works appear to be made of a hard metal but are, in fact, painstakingly drawn with graphite pencil on waved paper.
Through these labour intensive ways of working and crafting, McMurray explores notions that the domestic space, where most female crafting historically took place, is inherently benign or passive.
Grace McMurray studied BA (Hons) Fine Art Sculpture, Wimbledon College of Art (2005-08). Selected Solo Exhibition: Woven Polyhedra, University of Ulster, Belfast (2018). Selected Group Exhibitions include: Irish Modernisms, CCA Derry 2021; Royal Academy Summer Exhibition (2019); Jerwood Drawing Prize, Jerwood Space, London (2015); Synthetic Aesthetics, Leitrim Sculpture Centre, Manorhamilton, Ireland (2012); Watershed, Hong Kong Visual Arts Centre, Hong Kong (2010).
Awards include: Turner Prize 2021 with Array Collective.
PREVIOUS EXHIBITION
23.11.22—12.01.23
Into the Mystic
Ross Miley
The Katie Lindsay Gallery is delighted to present Ross Miley’s first solo show. Ross Miley is from Greyabbey and graduated from Manchester School of Art with First Class honours in 2022. This series of new paintings relate to his move back home from Manchester to a studio in Carrowdore, the Ards Peninsula, Northern Ireland. Miley explains how these paintings are not of any particular landscape but influenced by being in the surrounding landscapes and the changing seasons.
Miley often paints with music playing in the background. He’s spoken about inspiration from tracks like Radiohead’s Weird Fishes/Arpeggi and there is a link to an industrial, ‘punk aesthetic’ in some of his colour choices; the petrol blues, candy pinks and neon oranges. There is a softness too; looking at colours through a veil.
The title of this show is borrowed from the famous Van Morrison track; ‘Into the Mystic’. In an interview, Van Morrison recalled how “that song is kind of funny because when it came time to send the lyrics in WB Music, I couldn’t figure out what to send them. Because really the song has two sets of lyrics. For example, there’s ‘I was born before the wind’ and ‘I was borne before the wind,’ and also ‘Also younger than the sun, Ere the bonny boat was one'...
There is a draw, for Miley too, to the “sounds” words make, in place of their meanings, as he explores ‘writing’ for its artistic form and expresses “feelings ” rather than recording any particular place.
Like another of his heroes, Cy Twombly, the American abstract expressionist, Miley’s paintings linger at a threshold between words and the things they describe… The key thing being “words not making sense” — he trips over himself, perhaps consciously and evokes feelings (where words fall short) like passion, vulnerability and bliss.
PREVIOUS EXHIBITION
08.05.22—03.06.22
Singing with the Tide
Betsy Bradley
Betsy Bradley regards painting as a life force; a direct outlet for recording the invisible energy that connects us with the world. Having viewed her work as a dance between body and mind, thought and action, in this exhibition she considers painting as singing with the natural shifts that exist all around. The dancing of sunlight through the trees, the recent reappearance of the swallows, the tide. As an artist who interacts directly with her current surroundings, she engages in a natural and intuitive conversation with the local environment.
To sing with the tide is to joyfully embrace the uncontrollable, the impermanent. The tide moves with a life of its own. In her paintings, Bradley works playfully with the unpredictable; harmonising with elements that are beyond her control by pouring sea water over the surface, or using fabrics whose natural qualities give surprising effects, inviting the play of light. By letting go of expectations there are always discoveries to be made. This fluid approach is translated through intuitive movements of the body; dynamic gestures that take on a life of their own. When we tune in to the motion of all things, we can live more lightly. It is hoped that these works will share this liberating energy with the viewer, inviting us to notice the transient magic of in all phenomena.
PREVIOUS EXHIBITION
07.12.21—09.01.22
Journeys
Colin Watson
The journeys referred to in the title of this group of paintings are journeys not yet begun and journeys which take place only in the memories of the people who inhabit these landscapes. These are voyages anticipated, remembered, or conjured from their imaginations.
CURRENT | PREVIOUS
PREVIOUS EXHIBITION
22.07.22—16.09.22
What Strangers' Sight May Find
Sven Sandberg
Sven Sandberg received his MFA from the National College of Art and Design in Dublin in 2016. He has exhibited primarily in Ireland and the United States, including at the 2016 RDS Visual Art Awards, where he was joint recipient of the R.C. Lewis-Crosby Award. He received one of the Arts Council of Ireland’s Next Generation Artists Awards in 2018 and was included in the 2019 edition of the Futures series of exhibitions at the RHA in Dublin.
In 2021 he took part in the Sixth Biennial of Painting focusing on Ireland at the Croatian Association of Artists (HDLU) in Zagreb. His paintings are in public and private collections in Ireland, the UK, and the United States, including the Arts Council of Ireland and Trinity College Dublin. He currently lives and works in London.
PREVIOUS EXHIBITION
14.10.23—09.11.23
ABOVE & BEYOND
Sarah Longley
The Katie Lindsay Gallery is proud to present Above & Beyond, Lochalsh & Carrigskeewaun, Sarah Longley’s solo show; consisting of seven magnificent charcoal drawings.
Born and raised in Belfast, Sarah Longley studied Drawing & Painting at Edinburgh College of Art. She lived and worked in Edinburgh for some years before moving to the West Highlands with her family.
She has exhibited in the R.S.A, the R.H.A and the R.U.A. and is an Associate member of the Royal Ulster Academy. Her work is in several public collections including the Arts Council of Northern Ireland.
TWO WORLDS
These marvellous new works by the gifted artist Sarah Longley are strong and vibrant. What springs to mind is Hokusai’s comment about himself, that he was “mad about drawing”, a comment with which Degas concurred, applying it to his own obsession. Sarah Longley too is clearly “mad about drawing”, and her technique has evolved over the years to the point where she has made the practice entirely her own.The marks on the paper and the highly individual, expressive manner in which the subject is approached, sing together. The use of charcoal as a medium, with smudging (sfumato), scumbling and rubbing, along with the precise definition of the images, adds a wonderfully atmospheric touch.
It’s true that Sarah Longley has always been a fluent and energetic draughtsman, turning out many impressive studies, typically featuring a nude figure seated or lying down. But her most recent charcoal drawings seem to move her creative impulse on to another dimension. They encompass the entire world of the artist Sarah Longley with its cultures and landscapes, all her surroundings, her family, her incomparable sense of place. In fact, there are two worlds contained in the drawings on display here, the world of Lochalsh in the North West of Scotland where she lives with her partner and daughters, and Carrigskeewaun in County Mayo, the “home from home” of her parents and siblings, and a place which she has known all her life.
The drawing entitled “The Waterfall”, located in Scotland, has a mysterious, almost sinister intensity, like something out of a Grimm fairy tale, but tempered by the lovely image of the little girl on a swing; while the beautiful and compelling “Snow on Angel Hill”, with its exquisite detail, somehow encapsulates the entire northern ambience of Sarah Longley and her family, even showing the road along which the two girls walk to school.
But Mayo still remains as a beloved hinterland. Though she was born and grew up in Belfast, Carrigskeewaun – that small corner of the west of Ireland – has always been for Sarah Longley a tremendous source of inspiration. Many of her Mayo drawings (along with others) convey the close working bond between Sarah and her father, the poet Michael Longley.
The drawing “Boreen”, for instance, a visual accompaniment to the Longley poem of the same title, gathers up every vivid aspect of the area, the plants, meadowsweet, loosestrife, the grass-smothered boulders, all the bird and animal life, a lake that holds a particular meaning for all the family, and most enticing of all, “In the far field a jackass and his jennet/Safeguard[ing] the mare and her dozing foal”. “The Magic Beach”, too, all frothing waves and brooding mountain ridge, is another of the Longley places where the ordinary and the numinous meet. And “Towards the Fairy Fort”, with its flowers and grasses, its crouching hare, rocks breaking through the surface of the land, a distant prospect of hills - this even includes the spot where the artist’s parents would like their ashes to be scattered: in no way a morbid note, but rather an intense expression of a relationship to a shared sacred world.
They have drawn and written this world together.
JEFFREY MORGAN
PREVIOUS EXHIBITION
18.04.24—19.05.24
Wanderers
Colin Watson
The Katie Lindsay Gallery is proud to announce its upcoming exhibition, 'Wanderers', featuring new paintings from Colin Watson.
Watson lives and works in Belfast. He has held seven solo exhibitions in London, at the Pym’s Gallery, John Martin Gallery and at Simon Dickinson Fine Art, as well as in Dublin, Northern Ireland and Morocco. In October 2008, Colin was invited by HRH The Prince of Wales to accompany him on the Royal Tour of Japan, Brunei and Indonesia, as his official Tour Artist.
He has exhibited at the Royal Academy in London, the Royal Ulster Academy and the Royal Hibernian Academy, winning awards at the latter two. He was also awarded the Ireland Fund of Great Britain Annual Arts Award in 1999. His work has been included in the BP Portrait Prize Exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, The Royal Society of Portrait Painters annual exhibitions and at the Discerning Eye at the Mall Galleries in London.
Watson’s work is held in collections worldwide, including the Royal Collection and those of HRH Prince of Wales, HRH Duchess of Cornwall and Mohamed VI King of Morocco. He is also represented in a number of public collections, including the Ulster Museum, the Arts Council for Northern Ireland, the National Self-Portrait Collection of Ireland, Limerick and the Royal Geographical Society, London with a portrait of Sir Wilfred Thesiger, the British explorer and travel writer.
