Vicky Lennie “Artists Books”

February 18^th – 17^th March

In the Red Couch Space at the Courthouse Gallery

You are invited to the opening reception on 18, Feb, 2011 at 7pm.

To launch two new Artists Books, Vicky Lennie- will be having an exhibition of related work in the red couch space of the Courthouse Gallery in Ennistymon, Co. Clare from 18th February- 17th March 2011.
“The books: ‘Stones and Stories: Sketchbooks From the Burren and Aran Islands’ and ‘Early Irish Monks Understood that the World is Round’ are drawn from sketchbooks and paintings made around 1998/99, when I was living close to the Atlantic Ocean, in Doolin. Explorations of the surrounding area and folklore at that time led me through local stories and landscapes out to the many strange tales connected with the Atlantic.”
The exhibition will include original sketchbooks, paintings and ephemera, as well as the books themselves.

Vicky Lennie was born and raised in Edinburgh and studied at the Glasgow School of Art, graduating in 1993. She moved to the west of Ireland in 1996, and helped to establish the Doolin Artists group who held several successful exhibitions. Vicky now works from her studio at the Blue Frog Café and Arts Venue, Ennistymon, Co. Clare, where she also teaches life drawing and programmes arts events and exhibitions for the venue. She has exhibited in various Irish galleries and Arts Centres, including the Belltable Arts Centre in Limerick and the Dept. of Arts, Heritage, Gaeltacht and the Islands in Dublin.

info@vickylennie.net
www.vickylennie.net

“Townlands” Exhibition by Alan Counihan & Gypsy Ray

“Townlands” Exhibition

18^th February – 17^th March

You are invited to the opening reception on 18, Feb, 2011 at 7pm

Townlands is an exhibition of works made over the past two years by artists Alan Counihan and Gypsy Ray as part of the Townlands Project. Works to be shown at the Courthouse Gallery will include photographs, drawings, sculpture, installation and film all of which have grown out of creative interaction with the artists’ local landscape

The Townlands Project (www.townlands.net) is an ongoing creative exploration of a rural landscape and community in north Kilkenny. It has involved the gathering of place and field names in nine parish townlands along with a series of oral history recordings. Engagement with the community has been wide-ranging resulting in a collaboration between Barnstorm Theatre Company and the local national school, an artist-in-residence-programme , a seminar and a short film, all based on the local landscape and its history. It is anticipated that a publication will follow in 2011-2012.

Over the past twenty years Alan Counihan has realised many large site-specific works in the public domain and exhibited widely both in Ireland and the U.S.A. His work is in many public and private collections on both sides of the Atlantic. He has been the recipient of several grants and awards including the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Award. While perhaps best known for his object-based work his practice also incorporates photography, theatre, sound and texts. 

While resident in the USA, Gypsy Ray gained a national reputation for her social documentary photography especially for work focused on the issues of HIV/AIDS and its impact on specific communities.  Here in Ireland she has continued her creative engagement with place and people using both photography and drawing and was recently awarded a Kilkenny County Bursary for her initial work with the County Kilkenny Traveller Community.  Her drawings are a regular feature in the RHA annual exhibition.  A book of landscape imagery, "The Poetry of Place" was published in 2007.

For more information see : www.townlands.net

www.alancounihan.net.

www.gypsyray.wordpress.com