Thursday, September 18, 2008

homelessness

Today after what may be my final walk as a resident of Portobello before I change home, I arrived home to a man sleeping on my doorstep. I woke him and let him know I needed to enter my house. He was slightly confused having been woken from his fifty winks. He seemed very embarrassed and uncomfortable about the situation. He apologized several times to me and moved on slowly. 

Homeless people are ignored in Dublin city - what is so invisible about homeless people? We should rise to the responsibility of interacting with them. I was in San Francisco recently and couldn't but notice the amount of social and relaxed interaction between working folk and homeless people. This interaction, that is sadly amiss in Dublin city, must help all citizens gain a sense of belonging and place in their city, as well as a deeper understanding and respect for the layered society of their city.

Here's some interesting homeless signs from a Toronto based project. 

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Saturday, September 13, 2008

Francis Bacon at work

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Listening to Words

Francis Bacons' voice reminds me too much of mindless days sitting at his reconstructed studio while working in the Hugh Lane Gallery. Melvyn Braggs' interview on a loop became the background track to my wandering thoughts on the job. However, here's one I heard recently and I must quote.

Bragg : What do you think, when people say your paintings are ugly, what do you say to that?
Bacon : "I am genuinely pleased that those people don't like them...I much more pleased when they really hate them than when they like them, after-all it means that there might be something there."

Sitting by my own work anonymously recently, I observed some reactions to my installation piece on exhibition. I realized that I got a good kick out of those who did not like the piece and outwardly expressed their dislike. I found these stronger, more instant reactions caused greater satisfaction for me. This is strange because I usually make work that is aesthetically pleasing and to my liking rather than disliking. Perhaps Bacon enjoyed the negative attention his work received while he was alive because through it he received something openly genuine and true from the public. I wonder if Bacon only felt a work was complete when it was satisfactorily ugly or shocking enough to receive some passionate and genuine reactions.

posted by Paula Henihan at 8:57 PM 0 comments

Pods - end.

My glowing Pods have come to an end, their last exhibit being Electric Picnic in the Body and Soul area. The Body and Soul area is enough of a reason to visit the festival aside from a note of music. I hope to see it as an independent art festival sometime in the future. 

posted by Paula Henihan at 8:52 PM 0 comments

Saturday, August 23, 2008

Portfolio Course 2008



I recently finished teaching an intensive two-week portfolio course with nine second level art college hopefuls. It was a really enjoyable two weeks. It was good to work with students who are enthusiastic and have creative minds. Some samples of the students work created during the course can be seen here.

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Sunday, August 17, 2008

Viewing Art


Simple and straight forward, this little monoprint by Lisa Wharton reminded me of some ideas which drive my own work. Some more of her stuff here.

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Tuesday, August 05, 2008

Viewing Art - Anya Gallaccio in Kinsale


Simple ideas make perceptive art and astute design. Anya Gallaccio transforms Charles Fort in Kinsale by bringing harmonious visual contrast to the historic site using coloured glass. The uncomplicated windows capture changing sunlight and cast alluring shafts of luminous light throughout the wartime site.

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Listening to words

"When the gentleness between you hardens and you fall out of belonging with each other, may the depths that you have reached hold you still."

John O Donoghue

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Thursday, July 31, 2008

Listening to Lyrics

Gonna rise up, find my direction magnetically.... turning mistakes into gold.

Rise, by Eddie Vedder

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Thursday, July 24, 2008

Viewing Art - Galway Arts Festival


Max Streichers moving human stuctures are cleverly designed complex skin suits which become gigantic inflatable sculptures.

Visible Darkness is an impressive group show in which intricate drawings and highly skilled sculptural work convey ideas using decorative pattern with a refreshingly dark and Gothic angle.

posted by Paula Henihan at 9:48 PM 0 comments

Sunday, July 13, 2008

Listening to words

"The relationship between the public and the artist is complex and difficult to explain. There is a fine line between using this critical energy creatively and pandering to it."

Andy Goldsworthy

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Listening to Words

"I think we misread the landscape as something pretty when really there is a much darker side to it."

Andy Goldsworthy

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Saturday, June 14, 2008

Sketching

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Sketching


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Thursday, June 12, 2008

Upcoming Exhibition August 2008

I am exhibiting an installation piece at Electric Picnic this year. Huzzzah! The installation will be part of Body and Souls amazing concoction of interesting visual, performance, interactive and decorative art works this coming August.   www.bodyandsoul.ie


posted by Paula Henihan at 2:22 PM 0 comments

Upcoming Exhibition July 2008


I will be exhibiting an installation piece as part of the outdoor sculptural exhibition Insight:Outside. The exhibition takes place in St. Brigits Garden in Moycullen, Co. Galway on 14-27th July. 

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Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Butterflies from "Ties", Galway Arts Centre

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Detail from Installation

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Structure

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Installation




Installation for Ties at Galway Arts Centre

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Friday, May 02, 2008

Exhibition Invite

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Connection

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My Natural Selection from Flickr

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Tuesday, April 15, 2008

"Make"












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Friday, April 04, 2008

Threaded prints

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Yeah ! - my main website has been upgraded - it is shiny and new thanks to thougthwaxs' patience and immense generosity. It will feature information on my practice and this time it will be regularly updated.

Do check it out - www.paulahenihan.com

posted by Paula Henihan at 5:29 PM 0 comments

Thursday, March 27, 2008

Installation for 'Ties'


Still working on some pieces for Ties, my solo show at Galway Arts Centre this May

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Tuesday, March 25, 2008

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Thursday, March 20, 2008

Listening to Lyrics

"We will become silhouettes when our bodies finally go."

The Postal Service

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Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Waxworks



100 butterflies in the making

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Monday, March 17, 2008

Listening to Lyrics

Balance, Repetition
Composition, Mirrors

most of all the world is a place
where parts of wholes are described
within an overarching paradigm of clarity
and accuracy
the context of which makes possible
an underlying sense of the way it all fits together
despite our collective tendency not to conceive of it as such

The Books - Lost and Safe / Smells like Content

posted by Paula Henihan at 8:08 PM 4 comments

New Solo Exhibition - 'Pith'


Publish Post
My next solo exhibition titled Pith opens on the 1st April in Clotworthy Art Centre in Antrim town. It runs until the 2nd May. The exhibition includes prints and sculptural work made over the last two years.

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Detail from 'Strange Roots (ii)'



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Drawings

Connection

Strange Roots

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Exhibition prep - Solo at Galway Art Centre


Preparing for solo exhibition ('Ties') in Galway Arts Centre - it opens on the 8th of May. Making lots of new work - it's a biggy!

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Sunday, February 24, 2008

Listening to Words

"When you cease to fear your solitude, a new creativity awakens you. Your forgotten or neglected inner wealth begins to reveal itself."

John O Donoghue

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Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Trying new things

Recently titled 'disconnect'

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Disperse



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Sunday, February 10, 2008

Ties


Some new work in the making for my solo show in Galway Arts Centre, May 2008

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Friday, January 04, 2008

Viewing Art - Vanessa Donoso Lopéz at RHA


The Ashford Gallery in RHA, Dublin hosts a collection of weird and wonderful pieces by Vanessa Donoso Lopéz. Lopez has created a kind of fantastical living room with rich wallpaper decorating the space. Antique furniture is laden down with moving sculptures and found objects. Several teacups display dancing dolls while wax creatures sprout colourful growths from their heads and ticking butterflies are agitated by warped time. Apart from a failed assembly of paint tins and magnetic fish, which in my opinion the show could have done without, I found myself admiring Lopéz’ keen aesthetics and courageous execution.

Image: Vanessa Donoso Lopéz

posted by Paula Henihan at 12:56 PM 0 comments

Monday, August 13, 2007

Burps and Parps


It's the little things in life that are the best. Burps, poops, farts and the like. Staring into a little beings eyes for hours on end surrounded by silence.

Image: "All Souls" by Kiki Smith

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Monday, December 04, 2006



Untitled

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Tuesday, May 30, 2006

The Big Round, Custom House Studios

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Pods

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High Spirits and Strange Roots

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Friday, April 28, 2006

Banners




Title: Birth, Sustenance, Growth, Regeneration
Exhibition in Custom House Studios, Westport, May 2006.

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Pods in the Making


This piece as a whole consists of ten glowing spheres made from tissue paper with screenprinted images on each. Imagery includes embryos and ultrasound scans.

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Tuesday, September 13, 2005

Your Grand Enterprise



"Sometimes one is tempted to think that if you wanted us to behave like lilies of the field you might have given us an organisation more like theirs. But that, I suppose is just your grand experiment. Or no - not an experiment, for you have no need to find things out. Rather your grand enterprise. To make an organism which is also a spirit - to make that terrible oxymoron, a "spiritual animal". To take a poor primate, a beast with nerve endings all over it, a creature with a stomach that wants to be filed, a breeding animal that wants its mate"
C.S. Lewis

Like my Lino Print? - very indigenous!

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Wednesday, August 24, 2005

Alphabet Kiss



Messing around in photoshop -  I used some text here written by Kathy Predergast and taken from her piece in the exhibition,'Vinyl' in Cork, Aug, 2005

posted by Paula Henihan at 5:02 PM 2 comments