Private view – Thursday 26 May, 6-8pm

“What constitutes ‘an experience’ of history-‘being there’, being told about it, being taught it, reading about it, writing it? Or does history become ‘personal’ when an individual cares about it?” Susan Crane,” (Not) Writing History”

the third space gallery is pleased to present an exhibition of works by Paul McKinley entitled palisade. McKinley has often used other peoples’ photographs as starting points for his paintings and drawings. For this new body of work he has taken his imagery from a variety of sources, mostly taken recently, of a particular tourist site.

McKinley has become increasingly interested in the growth of a form of tourism where people visit, purposefully or as part of a broader recreational itinerary, a diverse range of sites, which offer a (re)presentation of death, disasters and atrocities in touristic form. This seemingly proliferation of ‘tourists’ gazing upon death and ‘other’ suffering has resulted in the rather emotive label of ‘dark tourism’ into academic discourse.

Rather than comment on the obvious historical narrative McKinley is more concerned with the changing social and cultural interpretations of the landscape, his astonishing attention to detail instead evokes speculation on events or situations that may have occurred in these places.

Paul McKinley was born in 1973 in Birmingham and now lives and works in Dublin and is represented by Kevin Kavanagh Gallery. He was awarded the Nissan Art Project in 2007 which resulted in a solo show Farewell Chestnut Avenue at the RHA Gallagher Gallery that year. Recent exhibitions include; CANADA at Kevin Kavanagh Gallery, 2011, Under the Bluebells (solo) at the LAB, Dublin in 2009, and group shows, Delicias de la Crisis, Oonagh Young Gallery, Dublin, 2009, Winter Salon, Temple Bar Gallery, Dublin, 2008, and Thirty Two Thousand Years Later, Pallas Contemporary Projects, Dublin, 2007.