The Dock is delighted to present Invited Guests by Kian Benson Bailes, Orla McHardy and Anna Spearman.

Selected through The Dock’s open call for local artists, the artists shared: “Working from a feeling of hospitality and dream logic — we’re working towards creating a space in which our sculptures are hanging out together and having a really nice time.

The title of our show, Invited Guests, is inspired by Phyllida Barlow’s site-specific works Objects for… — a series of temporary sculptural interventions in domestic spaces. Calling them “uninvited guests,” she challenged where art goes, who gets to make it, and who can access it.

“We enjoy making work alongside each other, sharing material processes and conceptual ideas. We often think about how our works could sit in a space with each other. These conversations and questions, in a very easy way, help us to clarify what we’re up to, as well as to imagine new possibilities for our work collectively. Open-ended material play is at the heart of our process — to the point where, at moments, authorship is blurred.”

Kian Benson Bailes is an Irish artist residing in the northwest of Ireland. His multifaceted practice explores rural Ireland, visual language and identity, through the use of sculpture, installation, collage, and textiles. Benson Bailes draws from Irish folklore, personal history, and queer theory, “to interrogate my own emotional landscape as a way of reconciling place and self.” Recent exhibitions include Culchie boy, I love you / Grá mo chroí thú, mo chábóigín féin, at Project Arts Centre, Dublin and The Gleaners Society for the 40th Edition EVA International, Limerick.

Orla McHardy is an artist and educator living and working in the northwest of Ireland. Her work has been exhibited and screened internationally. Working through expanded animation, video, text, documentary, collage, sculptural installation and within a tradition of feminism(s), her current work examines where value is placed (and not placed) on the hidden time of care, love and labour.

Anna Spearman is a visual artist living and working in the northwest of Ireland. She is currently a studio residency at The Dock. Anna’s studio practice is process led and is primarily concerned with the world of materiality, and the curious and playful language inherent in the processes of both object-making and painting.