Opening Reception Thursday 12 January

Exhibiting Artists: Lisa Flynn, Michele Horrigan, Elaine Reynolds, Jonathan Sammon • Curated by Ruth Hogan

Sites, places, locations: everyone has a place of origin, a locus from where all things begin. Spaces where we interact, live and thrive. Yet what role does this space play in determining a sense of self and how does one negotiate a sense of identity in an unfamiliar environment?

The phenomenon of ‘psycho-geography’ as defined by the Situationists has been used to describe the practice of spatial engagement within natural and urban landscapes. The environment as a reflection of the self, it’s influences on perception and how it comes to effect and characterise emotional and mental states becomes the narrative for this exhibition.

‘People can see nothing around them that is not their own image; everything speaks to them of themselves. Their very landscape is animated.’

– Guy Debord ‘On the Passage of a Few Persons Through a A Rather Brief Unity of Time’, 1959

This exhibition strives to present different interpretations of psycho-geographical engagement as an artistic practice, through the works of four selected artists; Lisa Flynn, Michele Horrigan, Elaine Reynolds and Jonathan Sammon.

Lisa Flynn is a London based Irish artist whose practice specialises in video and performance. A recent graduate from Central St. Martins, she has exhibited in group shows at Galway Arts Centre (Ireland), Monstertruck gallery (Dublin), Elevator gallery (London) and Vegas gallery (London). She has also recently completed the ‘Samkura’ Artist Residency in Tbilisi, Georgia in 2010. She will present three video works, ‘Drawing Breath’ (2007), ‘Hello Stranger’ (2007) and ‘Untitled Breath’ (2007) as part of a multi-channel installation. Her work is a mediation on the body as a site; an analogy of isolated space. She uses aspects of her own body within her films, using it as an instrument to explore the surreal physicality of human anatomy. Influenced by the theatre and the performing arts, she employs different devices to present a detached view of the body as an abstract form.

Michele Horrigan has produced a new body of work especially for this exhibition. ‘Purgatory’ is a new film work and ‘Dante’s Rock Phase’ is a series of photographs based on the rock formations and landscape of the town of Les Baux-de-Provence. The town’s unusual geography was fabled to be the inspiration for Dante’s ‘Purgatorio’ from the epic poem ‘The Divine Comedy’. Horrigan explores the relationship between the poem and the mountainous terrain of the town, through moving and still imagery. Her research and practice is always site-specific, dealing with the historical context of a location and reconciling it with it’s contemporary other. She has had several international solo shows such as Heaven’s Full Project, London, Galway Arts Centre, Galway, Frankfurter Kunstverein, Frankfurt-am-Main (2010) and SIM, Reykjavik (2009). She is also the founder and curatorial director of Askeaton Contemporary Arts, a project, which annually hosts a residency programme in County Limerick, called Welcome to the Neighbourhood, established in 2006.

Elaine Reynolds’ work takes form in the public sphere and responds to social phenomena within specific contexts. Recent undertakings address the economy and the architectures of cause and effect that occur within it. Existing systems are identified, appropriated and perhaps set to a new purpose – performative/live elements have evolved as significant mechanisms in this process. History, economics, hearsay and folklore are amongst a multitude of subjects that are referenced in her on-going enquiries. ‘On/Off States’ (2010) is a film work produced from a live performance, that documents the empty shell of a house on a ‘ghost estate’. Through the artist’s intervention, the shell is illuminated at intervals that replicate the S.O.S pattern in morse code. She is currently studying an MFA in Fine Art at Goldsmiths University, London, UK and has previously studied at the National College of Art and Design, Dublin and the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. She has participated in residencies and exhibitions, both nationally and internationally. Reynolds is a founding member of the artist led initiative The Good Hatchery in Co. Offaly, Ireland.

The work of Jonathan Sammon is an exploration into ideas of physical and emotional containment. Sammon will present several drawings and a video work ‘A Merry Peal of Celebration’ (2010). He develops narratives through drawing, video, sculpture and sound, which often draw upon the language of Science Fiction and Gothic literature to present states of emotional detachment, physical decay and spiritual corruption.

He has exhibited in group and solo shows, including ‘A Route Obscure and Lonely’, Triskel Art Centre, Cork (2010) and ‘Rusted Satellites Gather and Sing’ Camden Place, Cork (2010) and recently graduated from the Masters in Visual Arts Practice at Dun Laoighre institute of Technology, Dublin (2010).