Niamh O'Malley: The Mayo Arts Collaborative Inaugural Project
VISUAL ART: Gallery 31st August - 30th Sept 2013
In September, Mayo-born artist Niamh O’Malley will return to her home county for a unique exhibition featuring recent examples of her work in five different venues around the Mayo region.
Creating a cultural trail through some of Ireland’s most stunning landscapes, visitors are encouraged to engage with Niamh’s work in exhibition spaces in Belmullet, Ballycastle, Ballina, Castlebar and Westport.
The project breaks ground as it is the first time all five publicly funded visual arts spaces in Mayo have collaborated to show a single artist’s work simultaneously.
"There are two reasons this project excites me. One the collaborative aspect, venues pooling resources to achieve ambitious projects is a leading principle to establish in these lean times. Secondly, Niamh O’Malley’s work of the last five years has a distinct strength of vision and execution and embraces the complexity of perception, and this is an extraordinary way to encounter it." - Patrick T Murphy, curator of project and Director of RHA.
Niamh’s work combines video installation with sculptural objects and drawings many of which draw on landscape as a subject. Her recent film works have portrayed diverse sites: from Britain’s longest bridge, the pilgrimage island of Lough Derg and an immense working quarry to the intimate space of an inner city garden.
Niamh has exhibited widely both nationally and internationally. She has recently had a solo exhibition at Project Art Centre, Dublin. Her work is currently on show in Island: New Art from Ireland at Galleria Civica Modena, Italy and is in the collections of the Irish Museum of Modern Art, The Hugh Lane Gallery & the Arts Council of Ireland among others.
There will be a comprehensive education and events programme running alongside the project. This will include guided bus trips that will take visitors to all five venues in one day. Prior booking through participating venues is essential for the bus trips.
All five venues will devise specific access programmes for the exhibition during Culture Night.
A catalogue documenting Niamh’s practice with essays by Luke Gibbons & Matt Packer as well as a curator’s statement by Patrick T. Murphy of the RHA, will be published to accompany the exhibitions.
Aras Inis Gluaire website
Ballina Arts Centre website
Ballinglen Arts Foundation website
Custom House Studios website
This project is supported by Mayo County Council and The Arts Council
