Each IRISH WAVE exhibition is theme based and also interlaced with a poem of WB Yeats as 2015 celebrates his birth 150 years ago. The Beijing shows will be opened by Alan Kelly TD, Irish Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government and the Ambassador of Ireland Paul Kavanagh will also be present.
“They will not hush, the leaves a-flutter round me ” Oil on canvas, Ginko leaves 110 x160 cm
This post takes a look at some of my work that will be showing in the various shows. The following post will look at the highlights from these group shows once they have been installed over the coming days)
Golden Fleece: Inter Art Gallery, 798, Beijing, (March 15th -22nd)
Opening reception March 15th at 3 pm all are welcome
“Golden Fleece” is an exhibition of Irish and Chinese contemporary art in the ‘Year of the Ram’ and is inspired by the Yeats poem ‘Sailing to Byzantium.
The quest for the Golden Fleece, like that of the Holy Grail, describes a universal aspiration, a search for meaning and the desire to leave a legacy.
The artists explore their own personal quests for meaning and elucidation through the media of textile and fibres, painting and mixed media artworks.
Yeat’s eco quotes:
These works take selected lines of poetry written with correction fluid on used hepa air filter paper.
“Too long a sacrifice can make a stone of the heart”
Certain lines of poetry seem pertinent to our fragile planet. I think this link between the human condition and the natural world can speak volumes. How perhaps the natural world may express the human condition and in turn how our human condition affects and alters the earth.
“ I have spread my dreams under your feet,
Tread carefully because you tread on my dreams”
A Meditation at a Time of War- Dong Yue Art Museum- Beijing
Opening Reception March 16th 6pm (March 16th – 28th)
Please contact me at the back page of this site with your e mail address and I can send you a map and add your name to the guest list.
‘A Meditation in Time of War’ explores the difficult legacy of conflict across cultures and timelines in a range of media. The exhibition incorporates relevant texts from Yeats and Wing Tek Lum in English and as a complex poetic conversation about the meaning of war in our world. This year also marks the end of World War 2.
This work is based on the poem an “Irish Airman Foresees his Death”. The poem was written to honour the memory of Lady Gregory’s son Robert Gregory who died as a pilot in World War 1. There are two aircraft, the sopwith pup in the upper right represents Robert Gregory and the Black Hawk UH60 in the bottom left represents my bother Donie, Donal Cunningham CW2 (pilot), although not in combat, he died in service to the aviation section of the US army 20 years ago this August. May he rest in peace.
I want to thank Prof Fu Hao for the translation of this poem in Chinese which I use on the chinese version of this page.
An Irish Airman Foresees His Death W.B Yeats
I know that I shall meet my fate
Somewhere among the clouds above
Those that I fight I do not hate
Those that I guard I do not love
My country is Kiltartan cross
My countrymen Kiltartan’s poor
No likely end could bring them loss
Or leave them happier than before.
Nor law nor duty bade me fight
Nor public men, nor cheering crowds
A lonely impulse of delight
Drove to this tumult in the clouds;
I balanced all brought all to mind,
The years to come seemed waste of breath,
A waste of breath the years behind
In balance with this life, this death.
Small World – San Wei Art Centre, M50, Shanghai, March 20- 27th
Reception at 3 pm Saturday 21st will be opened by Irish Vice Consul General in Shanghai Eoghan Duffy
This group show focuses on the power of miniature artworks. A tiny scale can lead to a much deeper level of connection making it more immediate and intimate.
The two works I have done here are also of an emotional nature. Confronting a painful collective past is difficult, to think about a time when unwed mothers had only one place to go and be removed from embarrassing an acutely conservative society ruled by the Church. Hearing the news story last year of the long closed Bon Secours Mother and Child Home (1925- 1961) in Tuam, the media and the nature of the reporting of the small bodies in a septic tank deeply affected me. I needed to mark this in some way. I am hoping to say some things in these two small works, that there there is some kind of liberation and departure from the Church.
Intimate Perspectives Shanghai Grand Theatre Artist Talk March 23rd
These small works were made the year I lived in Carlow, Ireland in 2009.
IRISH WAVE founder Fion Gunn and artist/curators Brendan Jamison and Mark Revels will be giving presentations of the work in the March exhibitions and promoting the show at the San Wei Art Centre in M50, Shanghai.
Another post on the highlights of these group shows to follow soon .
Bi lingual walk through tours:
Inter Art Gallery 798 – Golden Fleece: Saturday March 21st 11am, Sunday March 22nd 3pm
Dong Yue Art Museum – A meditation in time of war: Saturday March 21st 3 pm , Sunday March 11am
Artists Talk on WB Yeats and the Contemporary Visual will be hosted at the Embassy of Ireland on March 25th at 6.30pm
Seats are limited for this presentation, Prof Fu Hao a major translator of Yeats will also speak and tell us what he found in Anne Yeats (daughter) library . Please contact me if you are interested in attending.