lucent

lucent – a touring exhibition curated by David Quinn.

Exhibition Talk: Saturday 6 July at 12pm: How Artists Think by Art Historian Jean Ryan

Join us on Saturday 6th July at 12pm for a talk on our current exhibition, lucent facilitated by Art Historian Jean Ryan. lucent is a group exhibition of small works curated by artist David Quinn, involving twelve international artists.

Jean Ryan is an art historian who is interested in creativity and the creative process. Her research is wide-ranging and led by the topics that influence an artists’ thinking together with decisions they make in visualizing these areas of interest in their art practice.

lucent is presented in partnership with Uillinn: West Cork Arts Centre who initiated it as part of a national tour.

Wexford Arts Centre in partnership with Uillinn: West Cork Arts Centre are pleased to present lucent, a group exhibition of small works curated by artist David Quinn, involving twelve international artists – Charles Brady (Ire), Niamh Clarke (NI), Vincent Hawkins (UK), Hiroyuki Hamada (JN), Tjibbe Hooghiemstra (NL), Jamie Mills (UK), Janet Mullarney (Ire), Helen O’Leary (Ire), David Quinn (Ire), Seamus Quinn (Ire), Sean Sullivan (US) and John Van Oers (BE). The exhibition will run in the lower and upper galleries of Wexford Arts Centre from Saturday 15 June to Tuesday 30 July,, 2024.

Curator David Quinn, lucent at Uillinn: West Cork Arts Centre, 2023. Photography by Jed Niezgoda / www.jedniezgoda.com

“Although I have curated quite a few exhibitions, I am first and foremost an artist and not a curator. This exhibition is a very personal project. The work I have included is by artists whose work and progress I am always keen to see. I think there is a lot of truth in Robert Motherwell’s quote ‘every intelligent painter carries the whole culture of modern painting in his head. It is his real subject, of which everything he paints is both a homage and critique.’ To a greater or lesser extent, the artists in this exhibition have been inspirational to me or sometimes it is just as Emerson said ‘in every work of genius we recognise our own rejected thoughts‘.

One of the common threads through the work of these artists for me is a sensitivity for materials and for the quality of line. Most of the artists here also blur the distinction between painting and sculpture. Their sculptures can be quite painterly and there is a subtle tactile element even to the works on paper. The other thing that interests me is that it is often hard to pin down exactly what the works are about (if that is what one is inclined to do). There is an inherent ambiguity in lots of the work, a vague open-endedness. Also, the scale that these artists often work on is intimate and personal. The works are memorable rather than monumental, suggestive rather than didactic, playful rather than strict. Where there is order it is often subverted and generally an air of gentle irreverence. Ultimately though the thing that draws these works together for me is that they are made with the attentiveness and care that comes from a labour of love.’

David Quinn, 2023

David Quinn

Born in Dublin in 1971. Lives in Shillelagh, Co. Wicklow.

David has been exhibiting his work for over thirty years. Recently, he has had solo exhibitions in Gana Art Nineone, Seoul (2023); Rossicontemporary, Brussels (2022) and Purdy Hicks, London (2021). He has participated in many international art fairs including Art Brussels, KIAF Seoul, Context New York, Pulse Miami, Contemporary Istanbul, and the London Art Fair.

He has been awarded a number of residencies including the Cold Press, Norfolk; Air Fukujusou, Kyoto; and the Tony O’Malley Residency, Callan.

Charles Brady

Born in New York in 1926. Died in Ireland in 1997.

Charles served in the US Navy during World War II. He had a series of mundane jobs after returning from war and took night classes in drawing, studying at the Art Students League in New York. He first visited Ireland in 1956, settling here permanently in 1959 and became well known as a painter of everyday objects, in an understated manner, on a modest scale. He exhibited extensively in Ireland and the United States.

Charles Brady’s works are included in numerous public collections including the Irish museum of Modern Art and the National Gallery, Ireland.

Niamh Clarke

Born in 1983 in Newry. Based in Newry/Belfast.

Niamh graduated from Ulster University in 2019. Her first solo exhibition was ‘the transient and the perishing’, Platform Gallery, Belfast (2021). Recent group exhibitions include: ‘Ode to Light’, Arcade Gallery, Belfast (2023) and ‘Quiet Wanders Laughing’ Hyde Bridge Gallery, Sligo (2023).

Niamh is member of Queen Street Studios, Belfast.

Hiroyuki Hamada

Born in Tokyo in 1968. Lives in East Hampton, New York.

Hiroyuki has exhibited widely throughout the United States, in Europe and in Asia. He has been awarded various residencies including those at the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Centre and the Edward F. Albee Foundation/William Flanagan Memorial Creative Person’s Centre.

Hamada’s work has been featured in various publications, including Stokstad and Cothren’s widely used art history text book Art: A Brief History (Pearseon). He was the recipient of a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Award in 1998 and was been awarded a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowships in 2009 and in 2017). In 2018 he was also awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship.

Recent solo exhibitions include Parrish Art Museum Road Show, South Fork Natural History Museum and Nature Center, New York (2023); Hiroyuki Hamada, Gana Art Bogwang, Seoul (2022); and Hiroyuki Hamada New Work, Lori Bookstein Fine Art, New York (2022).

Hiroyuki is represented by Bookstein Projects, New York.

Vincent Hawkins

Born in England in 1959.Lives and works in London.

Vincent has been exhibiting internationally for many years, having had solo exhibitions in Chicago, Paris and London. Recent exhibitions include, ‘Beyond The Walls of One’s Own Making’, Sid Motion Gallery, London, (2023); ‘Planet and Satellites’, l’ahah, Paris, (2023) and ‘Art in The Chapels’, Chapel of St Tugdual-Pontivy, Brittany (2022).

Vincent has been included in group shows in the USA, Italy, the UK, France (most recently in the 2023 edition of the Sillon Festival, Rhône-Alpes).

In 2006 Vincent was shortlisted for the Jerwood Drawing Prize and was a Prize Winner in John Moore’s 24, in the same year. He was selected to exhibit at PaintLounge / Sluice in late 2018.

Vincent is represented by Sid Motion Gallery, London.

Tjibbe Hooghiemstra

Born in 1997 in the Netherlands. Lives in the Netherlands.

Tjibbe has exhibited in galleries from New York to Tokyo as well as at many international art fairs, including Art Basel, FIAC Paris and Art Forum Berlin. In 1997 Tjibbe exhibited in the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. In 2008 his work was shown in the Irish Museum of Modern Art in Dublin.

His work is held in various private and public collections, including those of the Irish National Collection of Contemporary Drawing; the Model in Sligo; the Rijksmuseum and the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam.

Jamie Mills

Born in 1983. Lives in Cornwall.

Jamie is a multi-disciplinary visual and sound artist. He graduated with a Fine Art degree from the University of Gloucestershire in 2006 and has been working both as a solo artist, and collaboratively with other artists, poets, filmmakers and musicians, in the UK, and internationally since then. Recent projects he was worked on include ‘Sanctuary (A Space Under the Tongue)’, a solo exhibition, HWEG, Cornwall (2023); ‘King for a Day’, a film documentary, on which he worked as a composer and music producer, Awen Productions (2023); and ‘Wheel of the Year’, a mixed online programme of exhibitions, Anima Mundi, Cornwall (2022 – 2023).

Jamie’s work is held in public and private collections throughout the UK and Europe. He exhibits with Anima Mundi gallery, UK.

Janet Mullarney

Janet Mullarney. Born in 1952 in Dublin. Died in 2020 in Florence.

Janet exhibited extensively in both Ireland and abroad. Amongst the many awards she received were the RUA Perpetual Silver Medal; The RHA Sculpture Award; the Irish American Cultural Institute’s O’Malley Award; and The Pollock Krasner Award.

Solo exhibitions included Irish Museum of Modern Art; Dublin City Gallery; The Hugh Lane; the Royal Hibernian Academy; Crawford Municipal Gallery; Limerick City Gallery; Museo de Arte Contemporanea, Oaxaca, Mexico; and Casa Masaccio Arte Contemporanea, San Giovanni Valdarno.

She made many sculptures for public spaces including in Groningen, Holland; Royal Victoria Hospital, Belfast; and Cherry Orchard Primary School, Dublin.

Janet Mullarney was a member of Aosdana.

Helen O’Leary

Born in 1961 in Wexford. Lives in New Jersey and Drumshanbo.

Helen O’Leary was born in County Wexford, Ireland, and received her BFA and MFA at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Since 1991 she has been a Professor at the School of Visual Arts at Penn State University. Helen was recently awarded a John S. Simon Guggenheim Fellowship in Fine Arts, as well as the 2018–19 Rome Prize and Italian Fellowship from The American Academy in Rome. Additional awards include two Pollock-Krasner awards, and a Joan Mitchell Award for painting and sculpture.

Exhibitions include the National Gallery of Art, Limerick, Ireland; Glasgow Museum of Art, Glasgow, Scotland; The MAC, Belfast, Northern Ireland; Victorian College of the Arts, Melbourne, Australia; and the American Academy of Arts and Letters, New York, NY.

Her work is represented in national and international collections.

Seamus Quinn

Seamus Quinn. Born in Dublin in 1947. Lives in Dublin.

Seamus is the father of David Quinn, the artist and curator of ‘lucent’. He retired from work as a stores manager in 2010. In 2019 he started carving figures for his friends and family, using a Stanley knife and found wood.

His work in ‘lucent’ is the first he has shown publicly.

Sean Sullivan

Born in 1975 in Bronx, New York. Lives in the Hudson Valley, New York

Sean has exhibited widely in the US and Europe. Recent one and two person exhibitions include: ‘Faith in Doubt’, Chris Sharp Gallery, Los Angeles (2023); ‘Excitations’ (drawings of concern) Et Al., San Francisco (2023); ‘In the shade of a tree’, Devening Projects, Chicago (2022), ‘New Mnemonics’, Gallery Fifty One / Fifty One Too, Antwerp; (2021); and ‘BDDW’, Annex Gallery, New York (2019).

He has participated in group exhibitions at the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art at SUNY New Paltz, NY; the Markus Luttgen Gallery, Cologne; Ute Parduhn Gallery – Dusseldorf; and the Museum for Drawing, Huningen, Belgium.

John Van Oers

Born in 1967 in Neerpelt. Lives in Antwerp.

John studied at Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Antwerp and has been teaching sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Arendonk since 1994. He is well known in Belgium for his many public artworks including most recently ‘I Need Some Time’, a monument in Brussels to traffic victims; and ‘House on Basement’, a commissioned piece by the province of East Flanders and Radio 2.

Recent solo exhibitions include ‘The Personification of a Mathematical Order’, …ism project space, The Hague (2023); ‘PANG PANG’, a Shooting Performance at Secondroom, Antwerp (2023); and ‘Le Galet Française’, Pitcairn Museum for Contemporary Art, Groningen (2023).

He is a regular exhibitor at both Art Antwerp and Art Brussels art fairs and has contributed to many group shows, including most recently to ‘It’s a Small World After All’, Gallery De Wael 15, Antwerp (2023); and ‘The Big Bird Show’, Pizza Gallery, Antwerp (2023).

John is the subject of a short film by Jess De Gruyter entitled ‘HUSH HUSH’.

lucent is supported by the Arts Council / An Chomhairle Ealaíon as part of the 2023 – Strategic Funding – Touring – Arts Centres Grant, and initiated and developed by Uillinn: West Cork Arts Centre. The tour of lucent began in Uillinn: West Cork Arts Centre and ran from 9 July to 9 September 2023. It then travelled to Highlanes Gallery, Drogheda from February to April of this year and will run in Wexford Arts Centre from Saturday 15 June to Tuesday 30 July, 2024.

For further information on lucent contact Catherine Bowe- Curator, Wexford Arts Centre, Cornmarket, Wexford on +353 (0)53 91 23764 or catherine@wexfordartscentre.ie.

Wexford Arts Centre is supported by the Arts Council and Wexford County Council.

Gallery hours are Tuesday to Friday from 10am – 5pm and Saturday from 10am – 4pm.

Image Credits:
Top: Hiroyuki Hamada, #75, 2011-13, painted resin and painted plaster. Photo: Jed Niezgoda.
Middle: Installation view of work by Janet Mullarney and Hiroyuki Hamada. Photo: Jed Niezgoda.
Photography by Jed Niezgoda.

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