Irish Arts Review

Future forecastAuthor(s): Ruth CarrollSource: Irish Arts Review (2002-), Vol. 27, No. 3 (AUTUMN (SEPTEMBER - NOVEMBER 2010)),pp. 62-63Published by: Irish Arts ReviewStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20789385 .

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AUTUMN 2010_

EXHIBITION

1 The second stream in the Futures series offers a new generation of emerging artists the

opportunity to exploit the galleries of the RHA, writes Ruth Carroll

This exhibition is the second phase in

the Futures series, a sequence of

exhibitions that endeavours to doc

ument and contextualize the work of

emerging artists, around whom exists a

growing critical and curatorial consensus.

Futures first took place between 2001

and 2005 as Eurojet Futures and exhibited

the work of twenty-seven young Irish

artists, based both in Ireland and abroad.

Of these artists, many have become leading

practitioners and have gone on to realise

success and ambition in their practices. In

the years between 2005 and 2009, Patrick

Murphy, the RHA's Director and myself,

made the decision to rest the format to

allow a new surge of young talent to

emerge. By 2009, a new generation of

artists had become apparent and there

existed again a need to revitalize the

Futures concept.The artists in Futures 2010

have been selected from a number of

sources - from various artist-led initiatives

and independent group shows, to a devel

oping peer consensus that attempts an

objective view of different artistic practices

that have emerged in recent years. The

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1 AILBHE NI BHRIAIN Still from THE SUSPENSION ROOM series, 2009/10 Image Courtesy of the artist and Domobaal Gallery, London

2RHONA BYRNE STOP THE WORLD I WANT TO GET OFF 2010 Reconstituted timber from 'The Racer' Roller Coaster (1927) at Kennywood Amusement Park, Pittsburgh, USA 74cm 544cm 455cm Installation shot from Nothing is impossible, The Mattress Factory Museum, Pittsburgh, USA Photo? Tom Little Image Courtesy of the artist

62 IRISH ARTS REVIEW I AUTUMN 2010

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artists chosen for 'Futures 10' are Oisin

Byrne, Rhona Byrne, Fiona Chambers, Niall

de Buitl?ar, Damien Flood, Magnhild

Opdol and Ailbhe Ni Bhriain.

The foundation of Oisin Byrne's practice has been paper in various guises, from

large-scale origami installations to astro

logical maps pierced into cardboard, as

well as large-scale painting and perfoma

tive and collaborative projects. Recent

projects include a major collaborative

work in Princeton University in associa

tion with the head of astrophysics. Fiona

Chambers' practice is concerned with

societal trends, mass culture and commu

nication. Visual imagery from television,

the Internet, magazine and newspapers

forms the basis for various interrogations,

with the medium employed dictated by the subject. Niall de Buitl?ar's work is pri

marily an exploration of form and materi

ality through accumulative processes. He

works with materials that possess a prior

function or association and his work is

suggestive of pre-existing structures, the

structure developing in form and content

over time and in an unpredictable, yet sys

tematic and intuitive manner.

Rhona Byrne will present a series of

works examining the amusement park

industry and in particular, wooden roller

coasters, the physical experience of the thrill

of the escapade and the people who delight in it (Fig 2). Continuing her investigation

into the evolution of these coasters, she

makes work that layers their function and

associated emotion, questioning the com

plex associations that link these man-made

structures with emotional experience.

Bryrne lives and works in Dublin and has

recently exhibited in Australia, USA, UK

and Ireland. She has recently completed

residencies in IMMA and the Mattress

Factory in Pittsburgh.

Damien Flood's painting creates land

scapes that reference the history of painting

with an underlying, otherworldly element.

Appearing paradoxical in nature, the works

move from landscape to near complete

abstraction (Fig 4). He employs elements of

landscape, such as trees and mountains, as

signifiers in planes of abstraction. His work

poses questions, often depicting complex

views of the incomplete, allowing for vari

ous readings of the work. The artist will

exhibit a new series of large works made in

recent months. Flood is a graduate of both

IADT and NCAD, completing his MA in

2008. He has exhibited extensively both in

the UK and Ireland since 2005 and has been selected for the John Moores Contemporary

Painting Prize that takes place this year.

Magnhild Opdol was born in Norway and studied at NCAD, graduating in 2004.

Her recent work is a detailed investigation

into the nature of death, or more specifi

cally, the remains after life. She documents

these remains using various methods,

working around the ideas of 'the end as

the beginning', creating a new history

from the remnants of the past. She works

primarily in drawing (Fig 3), creating intrinsic studies in pencil of animal car

casses and remains, which express a silent

beauty in their deathliness. She has

recently employed taxidermy to create

sculptural works that are of personal rele

vance to the artist, being made from

remains of once loved pets, re-formed and

re-appropriated to create a new synergy.

Recent exhibitions include solo shows at

the Lab, Monster Truck and various venues

in Norway. She has recently completed res

idencies in Temple Bar Gallery and Studios

and the Red Stables.

Ailbhe Ni Bhriain (Fig 1) creates com

plex video works using landscape as a

starting point, and through intervention

with the pictorial space, creates a new

world in which place and time are out of

sync. She focuses on constructed and com

posite digital imagery, producing an inter

section of varying and otherworldly

realities, revealing both the work's fabrica

tion and our tentative relationship with

the truth associated with digital imaging.

She conjures a 'displaced-presence', a

meditation on the origin of the image and

our relationship to it. Ailbhe Ni Bhriain

holds a PhD in Fine Art Practice and has

recently exhibited in Shanghai, Domobaal

Gallery London and New York. Solo exhi

bitions include the Galway Arts Centre and

the Butler Gallery in Kilkenny. II

'Futures 10' Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin 3 September

- 2k October 2010.

A catalogue will be published by the RHA to document both Futures 09 and Futures 10.

Ruth Carroll is Exhibitions Curator at the Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin.

U

FUTURES ENDEAVOURS TO DOCUMENT AND CONTEXTUALIZE THE WORK OF EMERGING ARTISTS, AROUND WHOM EXISTS A GROWING CRITICAL AND CURATORIAL CONSENSUS

3 MAGNHILD OPD0L BEGINNING WITH THE END OF THE TALE 2009 pencil on paper 40x30cm Courtesy of the artist

U DAM I EN FLOOD RED LINE2009 oil on canvas 35x40cm Image Courtesy of the Artist and Green on Red Gallery, Dublin Photo? Damien Flood

AUTUMN 2010 I IRISH ARTS REVIEW 63

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