Patient Staring
A three person exhibition by Anne Hendrick, Aileen Murphy and Emma Roche
Curated by Paul Doran
Exhibition Talk – Saturday 29th November, 2pm
Curator Paul Doran in conversation with Anne Hendrick, Aileen Murphy and Emma Roche
19th October – 3rd December 2014
Opening: Saturday 18th October at 4pm
To coincide with Wexford Festival Opera and the Fringe Festival, Wexford Arts Centre is delighted to present a collaborative group exhibition, Patient Staring featuring artists, Anne Hendrick, Aileen Murphy and Emma Roche and curated by artist-as-curator, Paul Doran. The exhibition attempts to embrace each artist’s individual painting process and the visual risks applied throughout the production and eventual realisation.
Too often, the practice of painting will involve lengthy spells of planning and frequent hesitation infiltrated with self-reflexive interrogation. Here, the artist will then withdraw and begin a lengthy process of questioning before a period of intense production. Innumerable options are put forward through this creative process, and the challenge of distilling these thoughts prove to be the most daunting aspect of creating the work. At the outset for this exhibition, the artists came together to discuss their own individual thoughts around painting in an effort to clarify these processes, often viewed by many as a seemingly unattainable task.
For Anne Hendrick, her technique is one that is produced slowly and meditatively, seducing with silky and textured surfaces, in an attempt to produce images that almost transcend their object hood. This process of production occupies a main area in her work, where layer upon layer of paint is built up, often to disguise alleged mistakes which then infuse the work with an archaeological depth.
Similar instances occupy Emma Roche’s practice where paint becomes support, surface and medium all at once. Playing with learned structures and tradition, she is often concerned with forcing painting through processes where its conventional materials can function (or more accurately dysfunction) as a three dimensional thing.
For the process of making imaginative figures the focal point of her work, Aileen Murphy’s distinct approach explores the process of painting and often relies on a physical and observational exploration of the medium. Throughout, secretive yet revealing characters will appear, whilst patterns, bold colour and frames mark out territories enlivened by tension and anticipation.
Beyond the paint process, what becomes most interesting through the artists’ exchange of ideas is the overriding desire to seek a common ground. To speak of emotions within the context of contemporary practice may seem outmoded but what this exhibition essentially explores is the aspects of making that these artists share; encounters with anxiety and confidence, silence and noise, and the insufficiency of verbal language to express these experiences.
Artist Anne Hendrick was born in Wexford and graduated from the National College of Art and Design with a joint BFA in Painting and History of Art in 2006. Since then, she has exhibited in Temple Bar Gallery & Studios, the Royal Hibernian Academy, Monster Truck Gallery and Roscommon Arts Centre as well as the U.K, Iceland and Barcelona.
Emma Roche holds and MA in Visual Arts Practices, IADT, 2010 and a BA in Fine Art Painting, NCAD, 2006. She has exhibited widely in Ireland and the UK, including Monster Truck, Matt Roberts Arts London, Newbridge Arts Centre and Ormston House, Limerick. She was awarded an Arts Council Bursary award in 2010 and her work is in private and public collections including the Office of Public Works, Dublin.
Aileen Murphy studied in the Leipzig Academy of Visual Arts in Germany and the National College of Art and Design in Dublin, graduating in 2007 with a BFA in Painting. She has exhibited in a number of Dublin galleries including the Kevin Kavanagh Gallery and Monster Truck Gallery.
Patient Staring will open with a drinks reception on Saturday 18th October at 4pm and the exhibition runs in the upper gallery of Wexford Arts Centre from Sunday 19th October to Wednesday 3rd December, 2014. For further information on the exhibition please contact Catherine Bowe, Visual Arts Manager of Wexford Arts Centre on 053 9123764 or email catherine@wexfordartscentre.ie.
Wexford Arts Centre acknowledges the ongoing support of the Arts Council of Ireland and Wexford County Council.
Gallery hours from 19th October to 2nd November 2014:
Monday – Saturday: 10.00am – 5.00pm and Sunday: 10.30am – 4.30pm
Gallery hours from 3rd November to 3rd December, 2014:
Monday – Saturday: 10.00am – 5.00pm
