Painting

Wayward Fruit Tree at Ormond Studios, Dublin /  by Dorota Borowa

Wayward Fruit Tree Ormond Studios

Dorota Borowa, Chloe Brenan, Niamh Coffey, Nessa Darcy, Sarah Edmondson, Kieran Gallagher, Mary-Jo Gilligan, Jessica Kelly, Helen Mac Mahon and Keshet Zur

Preview 15th of September 2016, 6-8pm
Culture Night 16th of September 2016, 5-11pm
Saturday 17th of September 2016, 2-5pm

Do the books that writers don't write matter? It's easy to forget them, to assume the apocryphal bibliography must contain nothing but bad ideas, just abandoned projects, embarrassing first thoughts. It needn't be so: first thoughts are often best, cheeringly rehabilitated by third thoughts after they've been loured at by seconds. Besides, an idea isn't always abandoned because it fails some quality control test. The imagination doesn't crop annually like a reliable fruit tree. The writer has to gather whatever's there: sometimes too much, sometimes too little, sometimes nothing at all.

And in the years of glut there is always a slatted wooden tray in some cool, dark attic, which the writer nervously visits from time to time; and yes, oh dear, while he's been hard at work downstairs, up in the attic there are puckering skins, warning spots, a sudden brown collapse and the sprouting snowflakes. What can he do about it? Julian Barnes, Flaubert's Parrot

Wayward Fruit Tree is an exhibition of work by current and past members of Ormond Studios, an artist-led space in Dublin City. Taking the above literary notion of the "reliable fruit tree" as a metaphor for artistic output, the collection of works on display reflect on this nature of art making, specifically the negotiation and communication of ideas within the context of an ongoing artistic practice. Some of the artworks represent ideas as they are in the midst of taking shape, somewhere between conception and fruition. Others are earlier works that were not exhibited publicly at the time of their making, but rather served as springboards for other thoughts. In assembling these kinds of works alongside other recently completed pieces, the exhibition hopes to articulate something of the plurality of timings and rhythms specific to each maker's practice in their shared context of a collectively run space.

 

LUNAR at the Eight Gallery in Dublin /  by Dorota Borowa

Eight Gallery continues its strong run of exhibitions featuring emerging artists with LUNAR by Dorota Borowa. Hailing from Poland but living and working in Dublin, LUNAR is a series of monochrome-esque paintings of moons, oceans and mountains and is Borowa’s first solo show in Ireland. Repetition and duplication play key parts in this show as works document the ever changing viewpoints presented by the natural world. Borowa’s larger ocean pieces take on the qualities of photographic negatives, a theme that is strengthened in her smaller mountain pieces which have the feel of late 19th Century miniature topographical tintypes. The show is well constructed with the different styles and subject matters interlaced to compliment and contrast each other and serve to accentuate the themes on display. Larger paintings bleed in and out of canvases and as you move around the space brush strokes come in and out of focus, perspectives alter with viewing angles and sea waves turn to sea floors then to mountain ranges and back again. Her moon studies, upon closer inspection, have the feel of a living organism and this deconstruction of the perceived frees the work on show and places them in the free space between reality and full abstraction. The tangible link between the moon, the sea and lunar movements is evident throughout but under the surface of these works breathes a respect for the aggression and harmony of nature.  

Aidan Kelly-Murphy LeCool review

Dorota Borowa Lunar Eight Gallery
Dorota Borowa Lunar Eight Gallery
Dorota Borowa Lunar Eight Gallery
Dorota Borowa Lunar Eight Gallery
Dorota Borowa Lunar Eight Gallery