Into Irish Drawing
15 January – February 27th 2009
Stephen BRANDES Claire CARPENTER Gary COYLE Brian FAY Mark FRANCIS David GODBOLD Anita GROENER Katie HOLTEN Timothy EMLYN JONES Alice MAHER Niamh MC CANN Eoin MC HUGH Bea MC MAHON Nick MILLER Tom MOLLOY Isabel NOLAN Eamon O’KANE Niamh O’MALLEY Kathy PRENDERGAST Jim SAVAGE Gerda TELJEUR Martin WEDGE
Limerick City Gallery of Art is delighted to present this extensive exhibition celebrating contemporary Irish drawing. Curated by Arno Kramer, the exhibition selects 22 leading Irish based artists whose practice is strongly influenced or completely based on drawing. Into Irish Drawing will tour to Civic Arts Centre in
‘Image-making begins with interrogating appearances and making marks. Every artist discovers that drawing-when it is an urgent activity- is a two-way process. To draw is not only to measure and put down, it is also to receive’ John Berger
Into Irish Drawing showcases the work of twenty-two Irish artists who specialize in drawing. The choice of artist was largely determined by whether or not drawing forms more or less the mainstay of their oeuvre, or even is sometimes the only discipline they practice.
Arno Kramer, the curator of Into Irish Drawing comments that frequently something occurs in a drawing ‘by chance’, an event that the artist did not know was going to happen. Perhaps the artist may have nurtured a vague idea about how to start off. Or perhaps they had a clear plan, but then discovered at a certain moment that the work began to demand something from them and was beginning to move in a direction that they had not been initially expected. Nevertheless, the artist followed that route and it turned out to be the right one.
To a certain extent, the artist can evoke this situation by influencing the moment in question by means of a particular manoeuvre in the drawing, or more prosaically, by changing the music in the studio, by choosing a different environment, or even different silences. Occasionally, creating a drawing is an attempt to gain control over such a moment, over life itself even. When the artist is drawing, a link forms between his hand and an image.
Into Irish Drawing displays the final results of testing and experimenting on both large and small scales. The fascination of drawing is captured in the visibility of the process, of the record of the changes involved as the page holds evidence of the actions of the artist.
'it is only in the last ten years that artists who have made drawing the most important discipline in their oeuvre have come to the fore. They are true specialists who are mainly engaged in drawing and, as a consequence, are realising fascinating new developments in one of the oldest art disciplines.' Arno Kramer
