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Margaret O'Brien
I live in the cracks in the walls
Preview: Friday 17 October,
6 – 8 pm,
continues 18 October – 15 November 2008
project, specifically created for its space by Margaret O'Brien.
- I live in the cracks in the walls continues the artist's use
of installation as a material through which the emotive
experience of a space is manipulated to create a disorientating
psychological environment. In this exhibition O'Brien is using
a myriad of fine dressmaking pins to map the design on wallpaper.
This design is ornate and old fashioned. The pins are positioned
in very close proximity and level with one another, forming very
concentrated and dense sculptural structures of the design that
occur in patches on the walls. The piece carries a beautiful
aesthetic yet is harsh by nature of the material.
This exhibition insinuates
uneasy psychological and emotional
states and continues with O'Brien's research and practice surrounding
these issues and ensuing behavioural conditions.
The work is rooted in process rather than object. This process is
an exercise in excessive discipline and control and is overwhelming
in terms of obsessive-compulsive repetition. As a result of the
relationship between material, its multiplicity and scale, the
implication of time also weighs heavily on the piece.
O'Brien draws her inspiration
from the everyday, the familiar
and the domestic environment. In re-approaching objects or spaces
that we encounter on a daily basis, she replaces their normally
functional or benign fundamentals with an element of malfunction
or mishap. The spaces she interferes with become highly sensory
experiences. Using devices such as sporadic sound, live malfunction,
scale, and the multiple, the psyche of the viewer is affected through
an often involuntary, sensory response to the work. In this instance,
the work carries with it an atmosphere of repressed silence.
Margaret O'Brien (UK, 1972)
studied at Limerick School of Art and
Design, Ireland and The Slade School of Fine Art, London. Solo
exhibitions include The Long Goodbye, Droichead Arts Centre, Drogheda
in 2007; White Picket Fencing, The Belltable Arts Centre, Limerick in
2007; Sea of Unknowing, Pallas Heights, Dublin in 2005; and No Man's Land,
West Cork Arts Centre, Co. Cork in 2004. Previous group exhibitions
include Parallax, Fieldgate Gallery, London, Walking through Walls,
Museum of Modern Art, Tel Aviv, Print / Estampe, Cite Internationale
des Arts, Paris; and AIB Art Prize, Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin
for which she was short-listed in 2008 and 2003.
Upcoming exhibitions include
The Future Can Wait, Charlie Smith Gallery,
London (Oct 2008); Soot from the Funnel, Lokaal 01, The Netherlands
(Nov 2008) and Pathology of Place, Fieldgate Gallery, London
(April 2009). O'Brien is a full-time Lecturer in Fine Art at the
National College of Art & Design, Dublin and Visiting Lecturer in
several institutes across the U.K. and Ireland.
Listings Information:
Preview: Friday 17 October,
6 – 8 pm
Dates: 18 October – 15 November 2008
Venue: Pallas Contemporary Projects - 111 Grangegorman Road Lower, Dublin
7
Days: Thursday - Saturday
Time: 12 - 6pm
Pallas Contemporary Projects
111 Grangegorman Road Lower, Dublin 7, Ireland
T: +353 1 635 9766
E: info [at] pallasprojects.org
Opening Hours: Thurs - Sat, 12 - 6 pm