Excavations – Niamh Cunningham 瑞莲 Artist

Huiyuan Water City Oil on Canvas 2017 100x 300cm Niamh Cunningham

Excavations is an exhibition of work by six artists Gulistan, Fion Gunn, Monika Lin, Lee Sheungha, Audrey Mullins and Niamh Cunningham celebrating the twinning of the cities of Beijing and Dublin. Curated by Jia Jingjing and Fion Gunn.Excavations is an exhibition of work by six artists Gulistan, Fion Gunn, Monika Lin, Lee Sheungha, Audrey Mullins and Niamh Cunningham celebrating the twinning of the cities of Beijing and Dublin. Curated by Jia Jingjing and Fion Gunn. This post will look at some of my artworks.

Showing two renditions with different bodies of work the exhibition initially opened at Enjoy Museum, 798, April 12^th-17^{th .}and will be at Art Golf Space, He Gallery from April 20^thto 29^th.

The exhibition was sponsored by Dublin City Council. Many thanks the Embassy of Ireland for their support. Sincere thank you to Ambassador Eoin O’ Leary for officiating the opening along with Mr Tsai from the 798 committee. Many thanks also to Mr Wang Fei Yue of Enjoy museum and all the team there Mr Tian, Li Mo and assistant Liu.

Nana Bee Trainspotting .

The Subway series began in 2013 starting with LiushuiQiao 1 and 2, which I made for an Irish Wave exhibition called ‘Tale of two Cities’ since then I extended the series to Jiangtai and Yonghehong stations.

Jiangtai Acrylic on Canvas Niamh Cunningham 2018 120x100cm

Liushuiqiao-Ditie-2-Oil-on-Canvas 120 x 100cm2013 Niamh Cunningham

Excerpt from Catalogue

Cunningham, informed by her scientific training investigates the traces of contemporary cities which lie beneath the seas. Born in Dublin and brought up in Carlow she was surrounded by nature and inspired by it. Contemplating life beneath the surface as a site of divergent narratives and perspectives, she skilfully creates visions of lost worlds, cities with subversive potentials and the elusive everyday environments found in underground subway stations.

Her paintings reflect the tensions we experience in lives which are shaped by the processes of transformation and obliteration. Responding to her work curator Claire Cuccio, writes “in a 21st century rendering of any landscape, artists are posed with inevitable challenges of how to portray nature…..Cunningham has set out to transcend these limitations in her own visual production“

Niamh Cunningham 17 arches Summer Palace blue sucrose on printed cotton, mixed media ,2018 40 cm diam

The Sucrose Series

Juxtaposing Dublin and Beijing city landscapes, this is newly developed work applying a process of layer upon layer. These works begin as digital prints but I refer to them as paintings because of the layered interventions, the deliberate burning off and re-shifting of ink using mixed media.