Future Beauty? is an exhibition of everyday and extraordinary objects – pots, jewels, sculpture and furniture – designed and made in twenty six independent Irish studios in the past year. Future Beauty is a rare collision of materials, technologies and cultural influences, all linked by the experience of intelligent making. The show invites one to consider the current shape of art and design in Ireland, and, to consider the ways in which the thinking and the objects from these makers may influence our understanding of art and design in the future.
‘The handmade is an effort to add something… to contribute something….. it is one possibility to charge something in art…it doesn’t mean a better possibility – just a different one…but it is a possibility that is deeply human.’ Dorothea Pruhl.
Future Beauty is curated by UK based independent curator and writer on craft and design, Amanda Game. For 21 years Amanda ran the applied arts department of the Scottish Gallery in Edinburgh. She is currently undertaking doctoral research at the RCA in London on the role and impact of exhibition making as a way of communicating tacit values.
The twenty six participating studios were originally selected as part of the Irish Craft Portfolio critical selection process initiated and organised by the Crafts Council of Ireland in January 2012.
An extensive exhibition showing the work of 2 glass artists from 30 European countries. The work of 95 artists will be presented in the exhibitions. The exhibition category European Glass Art for work made by professional, established artists within the field of glass art was selected by an international jury.
New work by Róisín de Buitléar
Honor, Defend, Attack!
Spear heads from Vedrarfjiordr, the Viking city of Waterford – Irelands oldest city, once famous for its cut crystal products. With glass factories closed, thousands of hands no longer make use of their skills. The future of glass manufacturing in the Viking city is under siege.
Vedrarfjiordr –Longship
Blown, cut, diamond point engraved.
This piece speaks of the vulnerability of my craft and the balance of its future through use of light, form, and poetry of line.Vedrarfjiordr – the Viking name for Waterford, Irelands oldest city, world famous for its cut crystal products. In 2009 thousands of glassmakers lost their jobs when the factory closed, bringing the city and Irelands glass-manufacturing heritage to a critical crossroads.
BETWEEN ART AND INDUSTRY now at Millennium Court Arts centre Portadown August 4th – September 25th 2012
William St Portadown Co Armagh BT623NX
Between Art and Industry offers an opportunity to explore the shifting relationships between craft and industry through the use of objects, imagery and sound.
With the advent of globalisation, methods of manufacturing have shifted dramatically. Outsourcing of labour to other countries has resulted in decline of industrial manufacturing in Ireland and the UK. This exhibition reflects on those trends, on their consequences and costs, and on the potential for sustainable, highly skilled small-scale production to offer a new model. It looks to examine the shifting values that suggest the evolution of manufacturing now is towards a closer relationship with craft and the handmade. The exhibition features three different viewpoints from Róisín de Buitléar glass artist, Neil Brownsword ceramist, and Molloy and sons, weavers.
A series of glass sound objects created to create an Irish incantation, a harmony of voice, object and Irish soul. As a collection of displayed objects they communicate through pose and relationship with each other.
Based on a once common-place versatile bag made of knotted string this bag form tells its story through its cast shadow. Shaped by the ghost of it contents, its detail and history are defined by fine engraving describing the interlacing of knotted string. By casting a delicate but strong shadow it leaves the viewer decide what the content might be and marvel at the method of making which was often overlooked in the original item.
Materials Glass
Techniques Blown glass, hot formed glass, diamond point engraved
Dimensions vary H490 x W150x L280mm
Exhale
A basket form made of glass, captures the form of an exhalation of breath. The swollen form suggests a laden soft basket shaped by its contents. The fragile handle is drawn from the body of the basket as if it is one fluid line of continuous exhalation.
Title; Exhale
Materials Glass
Techniques; Blown hot formed glass, Dimensions vary H300 xL280x W130mm
Pictured above, President Mary Mc Aleese, with Róisín de Buitléar and children from the Phoenix park school.
September 26th 2011, saw the unveiling of ‘Taste!’ a Glass and steel sculpture by Róisín de Buitléar. Under the per cent for art scheme, it was commissioned by the OPW on behalf of the Presidents office on the occasion of the creation of the Sensory border in the Gardens at Áras an Úachtaráin.
The first crop of Irish strawberries for sale, are a signal of the arrival of the Irish summer!
This luscious glass strawberry perched on a steel fork appears to be plunging through the through the Victorian wall. It suggests someone snatching a strawberry or tempting a passer by with the bounty from the garden behind, indicating the location of the adjoining Kitchen Garden. Suspended on a fork from above the viewer, it is just out of reach and creates a yearning for the taste and smell of fresh strawberries. This sculpture is designed to be immediately accessible to the general public through the use of familiar objects and humour.
The unveiling was celebrated by the President Mary Mc Aleese accompanied by local school children from the Phoenix park.
Taste! is situated in the Victorian garden next to the Queens walk, some metres from the main house. The house and gardens are open to the public every Saturday.
Entirely manufactured in Ireland, the glass was blown and hot formed in the studios of the Irish Handmade glass company, Waterford, and the steel was made at Grogan Engineering, Dublin.
Visiting artist video at Museum of glass Tacoma, Washington, June 2010 working with the resident team of glassblowers Alex Stisser, Ben Cobb and Gabe Freman and assisted by Paula Stokes.
The residency was used to explore new ideas and produce new work on the subject of refraction, optics and the sound of glass drawing on inspiration from Ireland.
New works will be shown in the forthcoming ‘CAUTION! fragile’ exhibition to be shown in the Museum of Glass in July 2012.
