Haunted by a visit to the RHA
Cillin, Handle & Light Drinks at the RHA (By The Art Explorer Daniel Cullen)
The Royal Hibernian Academy has been described as an institution of two halves. Partly old, traditional, colonial heritage, formal dinners with all the archaic paraphernalia, and part a contemporary cultural institution providing innovative, educational programs encouraging and showcasing upcoming contemporary artists, playing a vital central role in the country’s visual arts culture. The RHA is partly state funded.
Situated just off Stephen’s Green, in a high value city centre location, its purpose built, state of the art building, and trendy coffee shop make it a popular lunchtime meeting place.
The spacious lobby with its long reception desk somehow manages to be less approachable and inviting than its IMMA equivalent. It offers little in the way of secure cloakroom facilities, and visitors are expected to simply leave their belongings in an open corner space.
We then made our way seemingly unnoticed, down a small flight of stairs into the bowel of the building. There were three independent Exhibitions showing with no apparent unifying theme.
‘Light Drinks’ an exhibition of small paintings by Shea Dalton
‘Cillin’ a photographic exhibition by Tommy Weir
‘Handle’ an exhibition of sculptures by Niamh O Malley
Once inside the large central atrium you are confronted by a wide imposing stairway ascending to the upper hallowed halls. Symbolically located at the foot of the stairwell, lies the Ashford Gallery, a small, square, cul-de-sac of a room. This exhibition space is sometimes used to showcase the work of up and coming artists or those at a significant point in their practice.
Currently on show here was the work of painter Shea Dalton. His introductory sheet was challenging to read and seemed convoluted and obscure.
“… (These) works are the outcome of his (artist) research into the assimilation and re-contextualisation of images or motifs, of ideas and influences that create fragile nexus of meaning which holds the work together.”
And more;
“These paintings are an absorption of post minimalism and expressionism, but ultimately become neither of these things”
As I grappled with this cat and mouse type grammar, I was having my doubts about the “fragile nexus of meaning”. As this room was quite crowded with swiftly touring visitors, I made only a cursory visit, promising to return later.
Up the grand stairway and you encounter three vast exhibition chambers. One containing Niamh O Malley’s ‘Handle’ exhibition.
Sleek, polished, and delicately balanced, metal and hardwood forms, that shun physical contact, offering the visitor little by way of support as we meander about the vast church like space. Our sheet tells us of the artist’s intention is to evoke ‘stillness’.
About the space are sheets of unremarkable domestic glass, leaning casually against walls or up against folded steel forms. (Personally, this was reminiscent of my own father’s castaway glass pieces about the house and shed — he was a glass beveller by trade.)
These glass assemblages create the effect of some interrupted process, waiting to be used, perhaps or even installed. However closer inspection shows deliberation, as each piece is carefully slotted into its timber base. Glass fragments, also suggest interruption, accident or discards, perhaps alluding to stillness in its different contexts.
With memories of my father stirred, I move amongst these scattered forms. Their thin defining lines, in timber and steel, seeming to mark out the vast negative space surrounding them.
Next up, I visited Tommy Weirs ‘Cillin’ exhibition, entering yet another large darkened space.
Here, equally spaced around the walls, hang a seemingly endless series of large black and white photos. Dimly lit portraits of deeply intimate landscapes.
To enter and view at least some of these works, before reading the sheet is perhaps advisable, to allow a short period of innocent aesthetic appreciation, while still ignorant of the works dark meaning. For once translated, interpreted through the word Cillin, there is no going back.
We learn that Cillin refers to those dreadful lonely places throughout the Irish countryside, where unbaptised infants were buried.
Religious tradition dictating, that these infants be buried outside and away from normal graveyards. Indeed they were to be taken to these places, usually by the grieving father, between dusk and dawn, to be buried anonymously in these wild deserted places.
And we are told there are many such places, documented by Weir and his collaborators, and indicated by the large number photographs. The story is deeply disturbing. The circumstances terrible to imagine. The photographs are hypnotic. The eye is focused by the solitary defining stage light. Scouring the image, among the jumbled rocks for evidence of passing. To be left only with the dreadful realisation of this purposeful anonymity.
You move from one to another, then another, and another, windows to unimaginable suffering, stretching off into the darkened gloom of the hall. A bitter contrast to Malley’s polished church-like space across the hall.
The work, which includes a moving poem by Una Mannion, stirred up deep feeling that I struggled to control, and so, I lacked any enthusiasm to revisit the other exhibitions. It also seemed unfair to make comparisons with this, what could be viewed as a journalistic work, documenting real tragedy on vast scale.
Later, emotional calm re-established I considered Shea Daltons paintings. And even sought escape and safety in their studied search and relatively small scale. The aesthetic quest amongst light and colour warmth and cool. And the infamous challenge of their square format. The reference to layered meanings, their richly coloured fringes suggesting deeper history and iconic motifs. Finally the clever play of meaning in the title ‘Light Drinks’.
I think I could have benefited from a colourful sip, but unfortunately the long pilgrimage through ’Cillin’ had taken its toll, and with a heavy tiredness I slumbered on the bus home, amongst the comforting chatter and rhythm of the engine.
Daniel Cullen (The Art Explorer)
‘Cillin’ a photographic exhibition by Tommy Weir. — Showing at The Dock Carrick-on-Shannon, Co Leitrim 18th January — 14th March 2020.
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The Art Explorer is a pseudonym for the artist and writer Daniel Cullen. Daniel’s writing draws on considerable and wide ranging experience within the Arts (over 30 yrs). This includes a successful career as a Public Sculptor, completing several percent for art commissions and extensive work as a Community Artist, working with hundreds of participants from all sections of the community. Daniel was a member of the Irish Museum of Modern Art’s ‘Artist Team’ where he worked for 5 years facilitating public engagement with their collection. His background also includes an earlier career as a Probation Welfare Officer, where he facilitated creative therapeutic programs with offenders. He was responsible for establishing the first Art Therapy Program for prisoners within Mountjoy Prison.
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CHECK OUT PREVIOUS REVIEWS
🔸 Bian Maguire -Review of Exhibition
🔸 Maria McKinney -Review of Exhibition
🔸 Joanna Kidney -Review of Exhibition
🔸 Riin Kaljurand — Review of Exhibition
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