Nigel Rolfe will perform European Dream on Culture Night: Fri 24 Sep, at 7:30pm (sharp)

The Green On Red Gallery is delighted to announce an exhibition of new work by acclaimed artist Nigel Rolfe. European Dream is developed from a recent performance in London and is the starting point and title for the current body of work being launched in the gallery on 1 September 2010.

This will be a momentous exhibition, possibly the most significant in years not just because of the scale and ambition of the installation – and accompanying performance but also because of the directness and the weight of his subject. European Dream recalls a previously all-embracing and terrifying vision for Europe that haunts us still, particularly at a time when cohesion and unity in the region is challenged.

The artist’s body is the site for the narrative in the large projections that constitute the core of the exhibition. In keeping with other recent work resonant historical or natural sites have led to the artist physically and sometimes dangerously immersing himself in that place. The same is true of his recent visit to a site of mass death which led to European Dream. The artist writes:

In between waking and sleeping, the nightmare of what happened in that place. The concrete and plaster stained with Prussian Blue like the pools of accumulated tears of those who died there. … At the very moment of the passing of human souls these stains were made to still today bear witness. A by product of the terrible process at work, for the blue of hydrogen cyanide is Prussian Blue.

Now for a year or two this remote corner is brought within the extended European Dream, a union whose corner stone here is a dark and bloody ground.

Typically, Rolfe’s videos are shot with a daring economy and to exquisite effect that few in this medium can match. The reduction to one or two materials and gestures, this time with accompanying sound makes for all the more disturbing viewing. This exhibition has the effect of finding its way under the skin and leaving a deep impression.

On Culture Night, September 24, 2010, the artist will perform, once and for one night only, in the Green On Red Gallery the most amplified version of European Dream seen to-date. Booking will be essential.

For further information, please contact Jerome O Drisceoil or Mary Caffrey at tel. +353.1.6713414 or email at info@greenonredgallery.com.