MERRY CHRISTMAS & A VERY HAPPY AND CREATIVE NEW YEAR!!

Merry Christmas and a very Happy and Creative 2010 from all of us at the Courthouse Gallery!! 

We would like to take this festive opportunity to once more thank all of you who have supported and encouraged our work at the gallery throughout the year. We sincerely hope that this support will continue next year as we have a very exciting range of exhibitions and events planned for 2010. Submissions for future exhibitions were of a previously unprecedented scale and of such a very high standard that we feel confident that visual arts in the area are reaching a new high level of artistic achievement. We hope and like to believe that the hard work of the team at the Courthouse Gallery has played its part in helping attain this new high standard.

Our current exhibition,  'A Festive Review', runs until January 12th. 

The opening times of the Gallery during the Christmas Holydays are:

Wednesday 23 December, 12 - 4 pm

Wednesday 30 December, 12 - 4 pm

Thursday     31 December, 12 - 4 pm

and we are open again on our regular hours from

Tuesday 5 - Saturday 9 January, 12 - 4 pm

All very welcome!!

Pictures from the CD Launch of NoLand Folk, "Ghosts Light The Scene"

WORLD PREMIER-North Clare made film SEASIDE STORIES by writer/director Fergus Tighe

Following a successful preview at the Cork Film Festival the North Clare made film SEASIDE STORIES... had it's WORLD PREMIER at  the COURTHOUSE STUDIOS GALLERY on DECEMBER 12th at 5 and 7pm

                                       

The Writer/Director Fergus Tighe was at both screenings as most of the actors including Fionn de Búrca (11 years) of Kilcornan who plays Locky, the boy around which the story swings. The film was made over the past 3 years from Gallivanting Media's base at the Courthouse Studios & Gallery

Top picture: Mick Flynn who wrote the song "Liscannor Bay" in the movie getting a hug from Fergus

Fergus was presented with a Birthday Cake after the showing of Seaside Stories

Locky is a boy who's been flourishing since his mother, Anna, gave up the drink three years ago. When Anna's old boyfriend Mick gets out of prison she falls back into her old ways of daytime drinking while Locky runs wild in the streets with his friend Callo, played by Caolann O'Dwyer 13. Meanwhile Sally arrives home determined to tell Locky that she is really his mother. This does not go exactly as planned and sets the scene for a series of events that changes the lives of all involved.

                                               

Fergus introducing Seasides  Stories to a packed house

All praise for Fionn de Búrca!

NoLand Folk new CD Launch Thursday 10th December @ 8pm

International folk-rock troubadours NoLand Folk will launch their second album "Ghosts Light the Scene" in the Courthouse Gallery on Thursday 10th Dec at 8pm.

Come and hear the band playing and enjoy the music. This is an open event and all are welcome to attend.

This follow-up to debut Never Going Home (2007) sees the band embark on a new course, articulated by some major changes in line-up. Recorded in the paludal hinterland of Co. Clare, ‘Ghosts Light the Scene’ is a tour de force of folk-rock using violins, accordions and guitars interwoven with an elegant, more electric setting to create a lush musical backdrop. What ensues is a vibrant, energetic and fearless set of songs.

Drawing from life experience and folk tradition moreso than outside influences, Ghosts Light the Scene tells a story of revenge, cacoethes, love, loss and dispossession. It marks the end of an old way, and the beginning of a new journey for this lonely ship…

'A Festive Review' - Christmas Show 2009 opening Friday 27th November at 8pm

Ennistymon Courthouse Gallery presents ‘A Festive Review’ Christmas Show, celebrating the creative achievements of the past year.

Courthouse Gallery is launching the annual Christmas show on Friday 27^th November at 8pm with live music from local musicians Christy Barry and Colin Nee. This is a free event and all are welcome to attend.  A Festive Review will run from Friday 27^th November until Thursday 14^th January 2010. The gallery is open Tuesday – Saturday, from 12pm – 4pm daily. No admission fee.

A Festive Review celebrates the creative achievements of the past year. The gallery is proud to look back on 2009, highlighting 23 artists who contributed to the artistic excellence and success of the gallery in 2009. Each artist will show new works which will include paintings, drawings, photography, ceramics, and sculpture. The opening provides a wonderful opportunity to see the work and meet the artists. The show highlights the work of local artists, with a national and international aspect.

Participating artists:

Fiona Woods

Sara Foust

Michael Hanrahan

Sinead O'Connell

Fergus Tighe

Vicky Lennie

Judy O’Sullivan

Fiona O’Dwyer

Jacqui Hersey

Fergus Cronin

Frank Golden

Dessie Mc Loughlin

Niall McCormack

Jan Ploeg

Josephine Geaney

Marianne Potterton

Mary Foudy O'Halloran

Madeleine Irene Smyth

Robin Grace

Maria Kerin

Valerie Driscoll

Brid Harhen

Olga Leszczynska

For further information, please contact Ennistymon Courthouse Gallery, Parliament Street, Ennistymon, Co. Clare, or telephone 065 707 1630, or email: ennistymoncourthousegallery@gmail.com.

One week left to come see "Dress Drawings" by Judy O'Sullivan

One week left to come see "Dress Drawings" by Judy O'Sullivan! 

An installation of drawings and projected images by the Lisdoonvarna based artist.

 

Mutual Exchange - by Clare artists in the Red Couch space

Mutual Exchange is an exhibition of work by Clare artists in the Red Couch space at The Courthouse Gallery in Ennistymon.

Each of the six artists based in the Courthouse studios have invited another artist to show a work and to select a work by their host, the mutual exchange described by the title.

This exciting concept, initiated by Trudi van der Elsen of the Courthouse Gallery, is a way of extending the connections between the Courthouse Gallery and artists in the area. It also opens up possibilities for the studio artists to work in a new way. A diverse range of practices will be on show.

'Alightment'

Studio-based artist Fiona Woods has invited well-known artist and curator Maria Kerin to collaborate with her on the creation of a new time-based sculptural/performance work. This piece of work will evolve and change over the course of the exhibition.

The exhibition will also feature work by the acclaimed painter Vickie Lennie, who has invited sculptor Barbara Roder to exhibit.

 

Local artists Sara Foust shows recent 

paintings alongside her invitee 

Debbie Horn.

The delicate ceramic works of Sinead O’ Connell, which have proven very popular at previous exhibitions, will be shown alongside her invited artist Sara Comerford.

Michael Hanrahan shows a

recent painting alongside invitee 

Mary O’Brien

 

Two photographers – studio artist Olga Leszczynska 

and her guest Jarek Szczucki – 

will bring an international dimension to the exhibition.

Mutual Exchange takes place to coincide with the exhibition of new work in the main gallery by North Clare artist Judy O’ Sullivan.

Dress Drawings by Judy O'Sullivan

Observe the process of drawing over time  as the artist Judy O'Sullivan will do a large drawing on the wall of the Courthouse Gallery

stage 1

stage 2

stage3

At the Launch of Judy O'Sullivan's new exhibition Dress Drawings

The official Launch of Judy O'Sullivan'exhibition held on the 24th of October at 4 pm, was a great success!

Professor Timothy Emlyn Jones, Dean of the Burren College of Art opened Judy's Show

 

Dress Drawings - New work by Judy O'Sullivan

Dress Drawings is an installation of drawings and projected images by Clare based artist Judy O'Sullivan. The artist responded to the Courthouse space by making work which varies in scale from tiny drawings on canvas and paper to a large scale wall drawing which will be made in situ and which the artist will develop for the duration of the exhibition.
















 'Clothes', according to Virginia Woolf, 'have more important offices than merely   to keep us warm; they change our view of the world and the world's view of us'.

These are drawings about what wraps, shields, protects and transforms the self. The dress is a skin of fiction, a fiction of appearance. When the fiction is played out the dress is left empty. It is the abandoned 'skin' - dress, sea urchin, mermaid's purse which fascinates by its beauty and strangeness, empty of the life it once held, evidence of something that was. 

The work began with drawings of an old black dress, made of crepe with a sequinned detail on the upper bodice given to the artist by her grandmother, a small farmer in West Cork, who was fond of the occasional 'a bit of style'. At the time the artist was also drawing a mermaid's purse, the empty egg case of a skate, shark or ray in which the young fish gestate, which she found on a beach. Working on both sets of drawings she made a connection between the dress and mermaid's purse, which she began to explore through drawing, painting and photography. Other elements of 'wrapping' like a lace veil and embroidered apron also found their way into her work.


The drawings are made with the simplest of materials on translucent paper originally made for wrapping butter. The paper itself is like a skin, wrinkling under the watery drawing and absorbing the drawing into itself. The paper, water, pigment and mark all merge into something new and surprising. Some are layered onto canvas. A video piece reflects this process and reveals another layer to this delicate, tactile exhibition.


This is a unique opportunity to observe the process of drawing over time as the artist will do a large scale drawing on the wall of the gallery and document its growth.