Holly Walsh – Student of the Year
Lavit Gallery, 5 Father Mathew St, Cork
7th February – 25th February 2017
Beginning in 1967, The Student of the Year Award has been given by the Lavit Gallery to a graduate of the Crawford College of Art and Design, who shows promise and potential. Past recipients of this award include; John Burke, Eilis O’ Connell, Vivienne Roche, Maud Cotter and Bridget Flannery. The Lavit is proud to support emerging artists as part of its programme, and to develop relationships with these artists over the coming years and stages of their career.
The award includes a solo exhibition in the Lavit gallery and a cash prize. We are delighted to have this award sponsored by Parfrey Murphy Chartered Accountants.
This year’s recipient is Holly Walsh, whose process revolves around the act of observing. The intense focus instilled in observing a landscape, interpreting it and marking it down. This leads her to see qualities that aren’t apparent at first glance. Areas of haziness contrast with more solid forms, echoing the changeable aspects of the places she tries to capture. Chinese ink paintings are a fundamental influence for her as they explore the more ephemeral qualities of landscapes as well as portraying nature. Her practice is a combination of recording outside phenomena and an expression of internal experience.
These works are ink on a linen and cotton mix canvas. The canvases have been primed with rabbit-skin glue, a process more commonly associated with Renaissance oil painting,
Holly Walsh is also the recipient of CIT’s Registrars Prize, and will have a solo exhibition in the James Barry Exhibition Centre, CIT Bishopstown Campus, 6th – 24th February.
Exhibition opens Tuesday 7th February, with a reception between 5pm – 7pm, and continues until Saturday 25th February, 2017.
Exhibition will be opened by Catherine Fehily (Head of CIT Crawford College of Art & Design) at 6.00pm.