Exhibition curated by Belinda Quirke with Sean McSweeney

The Yellow River is a tributary of the Blackwater (Kells), which joins the Boyne at Navan, County Meath that unites the personal histories of poet Gerard Smyth and artist Sean McSweeney.  Gerard Smyth spent many summers in Meath staying with his grandmother and an aunt, whilst originally Sean McSweeney’s family lived in Clongill until the untimely death of his father.

Over the last two years Gerard Smyth has been revisiting Meath in further inquiry with Belinda Quirke, Director of Solstice, in the development of a new suite of poems, recollecting and revisiting significant sites of occurrence in the poet’s and county’s history.  Sean McSweeney has created new work from recent trips to his original home place and the county.  McSweeney here responds lyrically to particular sites of Smyth’s poetry, whilst also depicting in watercolour, ink, tempera and drawing, the particular hues of The Royal County.