A solo exhibition by Órla Bates featuring drawings made in collaboration with artist Joanna Leah • Curated by Ann Mulrooney

In 2023, Órla Bates was invited to take part in the MAKE/curate programme, a partnership initiative between Wexford Arts Centre, the Arts Department of Wexford County Council, and Blackbird Cultur-Lab. The aim of the programme is to provide artists working regionally with an opportunity to work with a national curator. Over the course of two years, Orla worked with Curator Ann Mulrooney towards her solo exhibition at Wexford Arts Centre. Distinct from the curatorial support, mentorship was also facilitated by artist Joanna Leah.

A written response titled Diving for Pearls; the work of Órla Bates by Curator Ann Mulrooney accompanies the exhibition (see below).

Órla’s practice is grounded in drawing as a mode of presence and embodied inquiry. Explored within a somatic and meditative field, drawing functions as a way of being in the moment – an unfolding process where body, materials, and space co-create. Through this process, stemming from feeling and material, forms emerge shaped by inner sensations and outer gestures and the moment of their making.  As such, drawing becomes a way of encountering a space between what is felt and what forms out of experiences of being and sensations of the body.

Órla has been collaborating with artist Joanna Leah since 2022.  They met at a Lodestar residency in Ireland and quickly found connections between their observations of body spaces, movement, and embodied drawing. In the lead-up to this exhibition, Orla and Joanna undertook a residency in Blackbird Cultur-Lab which is a creative cultural laboratory supporting artists and organisations, based within a regenerative-agriculture farm in County Wexford.  Stemming from the residency, Wexford Arts Centre offers a shared space for Joanna and Órla to draw together again, performing new work that will be presented as part of the exhibition Sync Shift.

Joanna Leah is an artist and senior lecturer at Leeds Beckett University, Leeds School of Arts. Her practice research explores the body space developing choreographic and embodied practices producing drawings, installation and performance. Central to her practice is line-making; lines mediated by the body as ways to draw out encounters.

Órla Bates is a visual artist from County Wexford.  She holds a BA in Fine Art (Printmaking) from Limerick School of Art and Design and a Higher Diploma in Art Education from the National College of Art and Design, Dublin.

Ann Mulrooney has worked at senior levels in the creative and cultural sectors in Ireland for many years, including leadership of the National Design and Craft Gallery in Kilkenny, as CEO and Artistic Director of the VISUAL Centre for Contemporary Art in Carlow and Director of Science Gallery at Trinity College Dublin. She has curated multiple national and international exhibitions and devised, directed and produced artistic programming and engagement projects across many disciplines, including visual art, architecture, design, craft, theatre, dance, technology and animation.

The exhibition is supported by the Arts Department of Wexford County Council and Blackbird Cultur-Lab through Wexford Arts Centre’s Make/Curate Programme.