Orla Scannell’s address at the launch of Kube’s exhibition
in Tallagh Community Arts Centre on Thursday, 23rd March, 2006.
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It’s always a pleasure to come to the exhibitions here in the gallery. The standard of exhibitions is just phenomenal and the imaginative use of space has to be complimented.
Being here in the village, and having such visibility, being on a main thoroughfare with a bus-stop just outside, an awful lot of people unwittingly get to experience art who wouldn’t normally venture into galleries. But it is bringing more and more people in. I couldn’t really overstate the importance of spaces such as TCAC in supporting the work of emerging artists. As arts officer my role would be to support these organizations because they are the ones bringing in the expertise, and providing that leadership and consistency in their programme. So TCAC is very important to the emerging artists and to the local arts development here in Tallaght.
This evening’s exhibition features the work of the four artists from KUBE who are: Iseult O’Flynn, Megan O’Beirne , Ruth Lockhart and Chris Atkins who are all emerging artists. They work together as a collective – collectives are not really that common in Ireland, they are much more common as a way of working in Europe. The purpose is to provide support in production and to promote the work of the individual artists both in Ireland and abroad. I think you’ve all been successful to date in taking that approach. I know you’ve all worked together since 2001 when you were in college together. And also you have completed in Dun Laoghaire the Professional Development Course for Artists which is very good because it shows in the professionalism and determination which the group has in trying to achieving their objectives and again we can see the results of that this evening.
Just to speak about the art work: the artists are exploring the themes of landscape and memory as well as the process of painting. I think you can see the very individual outcome of those explorations. And here in South Dublin County it’s an area undergoing enormous transformation – you can see that on your way into the place and also, through our arts programmes in the Council we are exploring those issues of landscape and identity both in cultural and in physical terms; it runs through a lot of our programmes such as the Fused Arts Festival and in Context Three, our public art programme and with any of these explorations time and the evolving of ideas is really fundamental. So we’ll be watching the work of KUBE artists as it progresses and as they continue to explore these themes.
Just to paraphrase, this is actually from a review-but I think it probably describes the individual work of the artists in their use of technique: it refers to Megan O’Beirne’s energetic and fluid response, to Chris Atkins’ vivid colour and lines, Ruth Lockhart’s translation of memory into vivid colour and line and Iseult O’Flynn’s deep-scoring plates with circles and lines suggesting a path through visual language. And I don’t think I could put it better myself, it’s spot on.
I’ve no doubt that the artists involved in KUBE will be very successful in achieving their artistic and collective objective and I’d like to thank TCAC for bringing the work here and for giving us the opportunity in South Dublin to engage with this. I think it’s going to be a very popular and a very successful exhibition. So congratulations to all the artists. Thank you very much.