Residency Revisited
Debbie Dawson, Eileen Healy, Angie Shanahan and Eileen Singleton.
4th April – 6th May 2017
The Lavit Gallery, while based on Lavitt’s Quay, in the late 80s and early 90s, offered part of its space to an Artist in the form of a residency. Now, almost 30 years later, we have asked former artists in residence, Debbie Dawson, Eileen Healy, Angie Shanahan and Eileen Singleton to exhibit work that is current to their practice.
Working with stained glass, Debbie Dawson’s current practice and research is concerned with inner dialogues and is very much rooted in narrative. Autobiographical references heavily influence the creation of scenarios that are edited and filtered through the creative process. Through experimentation with paint application layers are created to enhance the ethereal quality of the image. The scenarios created aim to fulfil a desire to share intimate feelings with the viewer while attempting to remain ambiguous, an attempt to chart the terrain of an interior life and imagination.
Eileen Healy is a figurative artist, working mainly in pastel and oil from models in her studio at the Backwater Studios in Cork. A strong believer in the practice of drawing from life, she focuses on composition, colour and light. Her work conveys crisp and sensitive draughtsman of consummate skill.
As a visual artist, one of Angie Shanahan’s primary instincts is to try and distil the sense and soul of places that capture her attention. The physical reality we see and the invisible conceptual reality harboured in the spirit of the place. Lately, due to a series of ongoing trips to Irish Islands-and being conscious of the river island city where she works from- Angie has turned her attention to the harbour, an area of sanctuary before departure and on arrival. Steps and slipways, scarred markers of history, culture and memory focus my attention; a fragile reality holding forth against inundation and daily tidal surges. Crackling with emotional content, these places provide a transition from one space to another. Water acts as a unifying theme and reflects my preoccupation with the ideas of displacement and metamorphosis.
Eileen Singleton is a ceramic artist working in clay for almost 40 years. Her enduring interest in clay lies in the varied qualities inherent in the material. Clay is extremely malleable, is naturally versatile and this encourages her curiosity to experiment with the substance. In exploring the material Eileen has discovered numerous and varied ways of capturing texture in clay. Eileen rarely uses glazes, she prefers the texture of the naked clay surface. She uses slips and underglaze stains in repeat firings to build up colour on the work.