Technically Art - Exhibition from the Technical Staff of Crawford College of Art & Design
Technically Art
An Exhibition from the Technical Staff of Crawford College of Art & Design
Chapel Hill School of Art is delighted to present an exhibition of the work of the ten members of the Technical Staff of Crawford College of Art & Design, Cork.
Technically Art is an exhibition of work by the Technical support staff of the Crawford College of Art & Design,Cork. Spanning a variety of materials and concepts, traditional and contemporary. It reflects their own artistic ideals and expertise, practiced on a daily basis in college and in their own personal studios. It is clear from their work that they are invested in both art education and their own contribution to the vibrant, cultural visual art world they work, live in and contribute so much too.
The Exhibition will be opened by Head of College, Rose Mc Grath, on December 2nd at 7pm followed by a drinks reception and music.
All Welcome
Chapel Hill School of Art is delight to present Technically Art an exhibition of work from
Andrea Baron
Conall Carey
Tim Collins
Lynn-Marie Dennehy
Nicole Jackson
Denis Lynch
Liam Rice
Helen O Shea
Joe O Neill
Andrea Baron
Andrea Barron is the Technical Officer for both the Ceramic and Glass workshops in Crawford College of Art & Design. Following 12 years of nursing Andrea changed her career path after completing a night class in ceramics. She did a PLC course in Art Craft and Design in Colaiste Stiofan Naofa and then a diploma in Ceramic Design in Crawford College of Art & Design. Andrea taught Adult Education Ceramics in Crawford College of Art & Design and on the Art Craft and Design course in Colaiste Stiofan Naofa before starting her present technical role in Ceramics. Andrea then went on to also work as Technical officer in the Glass Department for the last 7 years.
Artists Statement
My work explores the dynamics of fracture in the material I use and the correlation of the surfaces with different glazes.
Conall Carey
Print Department Technician Conall Cary is a visual artist and printmaker based out of Ireland. After studies at the University of Oregon, he went on to study at the Centre for Creative Arts & Media in Galway, before completing an M.A. in Digital Cultures from University College Cork, focusing on online digital representation of visual arts content in Ireland.
Artists Statement
Previous work has addressed issues of contemporary masculinity and male identity, and the negative impact of historical stereotypes and traditional gender roles. More recent work explores a kind of ‘suspended’ identity, or a cultural ‘statelessness’, characterized by a sense of isolation and disconnection from global politics and growing nationalist trends.
Tim Collins
Metalwork Department Technician has been working in Egyptian limestone bronze reclaimed iron and ast concrete.
The piece 'Intergration' is made from Egyptian limestone and bronze. It is dedicated to Roger Hannam and John White. The bronze Disc was the last piece I made in the college foundry with Roger in my post grad research year. The cast concrete is taken from the anvil in the metal workshop which John ran. Every student of sculpture to pass through the Crawford college has used this anvil over the past 30 to 40 years.
Denis Lynch
First Year Department Technician Denis Lynch was born in Cork in 1960 but spent his formative years in Ennis, Co. Clare before returning to Cork in 1980. He attended the Crawford College of Art and Design from 1980 to 1984, graduating with a degree in Fine Art/Sculpture. He moved to London for a year and after travelling to India, Nepal and Australia, he took up a post as a Technical Officer in the C.C.A.D. in 1986, where he currently works.
Artists Statement
His woodcarvings are an attempt to articulate the primordial forces of nature. He believes that humanity has always attempted to articulate the world and its elemental forces through art as a medium of understanding the ineffable. Art provides a set of motifs in order to have a semblance of control, even if we know this is not the case. He believes art remains one of our methods of survival in a universe we cannot fathom.
Lynn-Marie Dennehy
Print Department Technician Lynn-Marie Dennehy is a visual artist, based in Cork City. She received an MA in Art and Process in 2018 and a BA in Fine Art in 2015 from CIT Crawford College of Art and Design. She is a full-time studio member of Backwater Artists Group and Cork Printmakers. She has exhibited both nationally and internationally and is supported by the Arts Council of Ireland. Her research-based practice employs sculpture, printmaking and video, with influences from philosophy, history and mythology. The workexplores the place between culture, art and resistance, creating playful but pointed installations that explore the cultural influences and implications of a hegemonic society.
Artist Statement
Through a process of digital manipulation, re-appropriation and reproduction, which the artist has dubbed ‘serendipitous digital drawing’, this work creates iconographically unstable images that can be assembled and recombined to yield fresh meanings and interpretations. Her material investigations feed into these ideas while also examining the implications of making art through automated means. She uses laser cutting technologies in ways that allow her to retain control of the mark making, layering and manipulating images and combining them with wooden supports and plinths to create a kind of sculptural extrapolation of space that brings the drawing back to its original context, a playful spatial assemblage that replicates the life drawing set up allowing the viewer to question assumptions of authenticity within the image itself and the perception of automated art production.
Helen O Shea
Textile Technician Helen O’Shea is a Cork based artist who has exhibited internationally. She has developed a practice of sculptural making that directly engages with issues of waste and recycling. By using/reuse existing materials, she creates forms that mimic the natural world and engage our relationship to it.
After exploring Creative Textiles in Coláiste Stiofáin Naofa 2007-09, and Fine Art Textiles 2010-12 in MTU Crawford College of Art and Design, O’Shea attained a degree in Contemporary Applied Art in 2017 MTU CCAD. Then she went on to undertake a MA by Research in 2021 in MTU, where she focused on new narratives for waste Plastics.
Since graduating O’Shea has exhibited widely in London with Ting-Ying Gallery, as part of Collect Art Fair with Design Crafts Council Ireland, and in the Venetian Homo Faber Event 2022.
Artists Statement
A residency in Iceland, in 2015, has left a lasting impression on the work now made by O’Shea. Observing the resourceful use of materials, how they were being utilised to the fullest, and the practice of extracting more from waste impressed and remained with her. The enduring nature of plastics then became her own focus. Its durability is problematic when it invades our natural habitat. O’Shea ‘s research asks us to consider a new relationship to waste plastics. Selection and connection are foregrounded within the tactile nature of her practice. Spending time with a material, and ‘thinking through making’ (Ingold 2013) highlight the material qualities. Concentrated, Investigative, exploration, coupled with the transformative processes this provides, help to inspire other insights and perceptions. No longer seeing the waste ‘as matter out of place’ (Douglas in 1966) O’Shea’s work disrupts our sensibilities through subversive aesthetics and offers new possibilities. Researching deep-water hydrothermal vents where life on this planet is thought to have begun, inspired O’Shea to create futuristic creatures from waste plastics. The sun’s red rays penetrate deep water less than other colours on the spectrum, and so red creatures are nearly invisible. This phenomenon informs the colour choice for my work. The shape of my work results from a combination of responding to the material I am using and the structural make up of life around these hydrothermal vents. Imagination brings it all together to grow and culminate a new piece, or a series of works.
Nicole Jackson
Textiles Department Technician, Nicole Jackson, originally studied Fashion Design in Limerick School or Art and Design.
Nicole has mainly worked in the design sphere with leather and wool more recently she has turned to work with various Carrickmacross lace techniques, a craft she learned from her Carrickmacross based grandmother.
Liam Rice
Woodwork Department Technician Liam Rice. Liam sculptures are inspired by the new weird genre of fiction , inspired by photographs from a series work captured in Cork City during Covid called ‘Sights, Signs and Symbols.’
Joe O' Neill
Photography Technician Joe O Neill graduated Crawford College of Art and Design 1986. Joe worked half-time as print technician from 1990-2005 and then as slide librarian 2005-2006. Since 2006 Joe has been the Photography Technician at Crawford.
