Wexford Arts Centre are pleased to present Amuigh faoin Spéir, an exhibition of new painting and mixed media works by artist Paddy Lennon. The exhibition will run in the lower and upper galleries.

The opening reception will take place on Saturday August 29th at 2pm and 4pm with Paddy Lennon in conversation with Curator Éimear O’Connor in our lower gallery. Places are limited and booking in advance is essential to guarantee your place. You can click here to book your place.

Please note, this event will take place under current social distancing measurements as per Government guidelines. As part of our commitment to the continued well-being of our visitors, team members, and in an ongoing effort to assist our community in preventing the spread of COVID-19, we have implemented enhanced protocols and procedures you will notice before and during your visit. This includes hand sanitiser dispensers placed at key points throughout the centre, promoting a one-way experience that reinforces social distancing guidelines, and additional signage to promote hand washing and best hygiene practices. We request that all patrons wear a face mask when visiting. You can view all details regarding our COVID-19 protocols here.

Every visual experience is at one and the same time a receiving of fragmentary information, a giving of form to those visual sensations, and the arousing of a felt response – for artist Paddy Lennon, what ultimately matters is the quality of feeling that results. Through environmental experience, the mind builds a construct of the world and stores images for later reference. Inspired by the landscape, Lennon is interested in connecting the physical to stored cognitive images, making associations, and communicating meaning beyond the literal. In an effort to make associations, he is sensitive to and utilizes the basic visual vocabulary of form, colour, texture, and light and shade. He intuitively understands that every aspect of this vocabulary exerts intrinsic force into a context/composition.

Singularly and in combination, Lennon’s handling of these elements and their organization connect with stored images to bring forth associations and felt responses in the mind’s eye. Lennon seeks to raise awareness of characteristics in the landscape that concentrate and intensify meaning – bog water, bog pools, the water’s edge. Through abstraction, he eliminates from consideration some of the attributes of the physical world to concentrate on other aspects which he reconfigures in a manner that connects with and stimulates the imagination.

This emphasis on a felt language which resonates from the landscape is enhanced by Lennon’s poetic use of Irish language in the titles of his work. Many Irish words derive from a world in which the unseen is as real as the seen. Words like sclimpíní, for example, conveys the effect of lights dancing before one’s eyes – either real light or the supernatural. One of Lennon’s formative experiences of colour is of being transfixed by the translucence emitted by stained glass windows in church as a child, “It had the power to transform a duty-bound incarceration into a warm rich colourful embrace”. Childhood outings to the mountains and the sea lead to his appreciation of nature and the land as vibrant, sentient beings. In as much as a single word in Irish can unlock the hidden richness in the landscape, Lennon works in Amuigh faoin Spéir operate in the same way.

Based in County Wexford, Paddy Lennon graduated from City & Guilds Art School, London. He has participated in artist residency programmes in the Red Gate Gallery, Beijng, China; CEAC Residency, Xiamen, China; Liwa Arts Residency, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates; and Cill Riallaig Arts Residency, Kerry, Ireland. Lennon’s work is in the collections of the Office of Public Works, University of Limerick, Trinity College Dublin, Citibank Dublin, Museo de Grabado Espanol Contemporneo, State University New York, and numerous private collectors.

Lennon has exhibited extensively nationally and international including the Siddharta Gallery, Nepal; the Clifdon Arts Festival, Galway; Gallery One, Wuxi, China; Art Echo Guangzhou, China; Light Box Gallery, Abu Dhabi, UAE; Gallery Freiling, Geneva, Switzerland; and Greenacres Gallery, Wexford; and the Norman Gallery, Wexford. He has been a recipient of the Artlinks Bursary, Culture Ireland Travel Bursary, and fellowships from the Da Wung Cultural Arts Centre – Shenzhen and Art Echo- Guangzhou, China.

Lennon has exhibited extensively nationally and international including the Siddharta Gallery, Nepal; the Clifdon Arts Festival, Galway; Gallery One, Wuxi, China; Art Echo Guangzhou, China; Light Box Gallery, Abu Dhabi, UAE; Gallery Freiling, Geneva, Switzerland; and Greenacres Gallery, Wexford; and the Norman Gallery, Wexford.

He has been a recipient of the Artlinks Bursary, Culture Ireland Travel Bursary, and fellowships from the Da Wung Cultural Arts Centre – Shenzhen and Art Echo- Guangzhou, China.

Dr. Éimear O’Connor HRHA is an art historian, curator, lecturer, art advisor and archivist based in Dublin. O’Connor began her professional career as a visual artist and has exhibited in Ireland, Denmark and North America. She studied art history and history as a mature student in UCD and was awarded a BA (Hons) in 2003, which was followed by a PhD from the School of Art History and Cultural Policy (UCD) in 2008. O’Connor was a post-doctoral scholar with TRIARC-Irish Art Research Centre (TCD) (2008-10) and was then awarded the Clare and Tony White post-doctoral fellowship (2010-11). She is now a Research Associate with TRIARC-Irish Art Research Centre (TCD). O’Connor was awarded a first class honours MBA (DIT, Aungier Street) in 2016 (see art consultancy tab for further information).

She has published books and catalogues, and several articles and reviews on Irish art. Her recent book, titled Seán Keating: Art, Politics and Building the Nation is published by Irish Academic Press. She writes chapters, articles, reviews and catalogue notes, and she lectures in universities, art institutions, libraries, schools and communal gatherings on Irish, European and North American twentieth-century art.