New Collaborative Work with Rachel Fallon at To Never Look Away @ TØN Gallery Dublin
To Never Look Away
Artists: Rachel Fallon and Claire Halpin. Glass technician: Madeleine Hellier
Hand stitched wool felt box, kiln formed black glass, oil on gesso tondo panel, 14cm D X 6cm, 2024
New collaborative artwork created with artist Rachel Fallon as part of the exhibition To Never Look Away which I curated at TØN Dublin. Following my recent discovery of the Claude Glass as an object fitting image and metaphor for this exhibition which I was curating and producing – I wanted to create a contemporary version or interpretation. And so invited Rachel Fallon to collaborate and create a box/ container and asked Madeleine Hellier, glass artist for technical guidance on kiln forming the black glass itself. The resulting artwork is, to my mind an object of beauty with multilayered meanings that evolved through the collaboration to become a key piece in the exhibition evoking many responses.
Thanks Rachel and Madeleine for taking the gauntlet!
A Claude glass (or black mirror) is a small mirror, slightly convex, with its surface tinted a dark colour. Bound up like a pocket-book or in a carrying case, Claude glasses were used by artists, travellers and connoisseurs of landscape and landscape painting.
The black mirror has the effect of reducing and simplifying the colour and tonal range of scenes and scenery to give them a painterly quality. The user would turn their back on the scene to observe the framed view through the tinted mirror—in a sort of pre-photographic lens—which added the picturesque aesthetic of a subtle gradation of tones. The Claude glass is named after Claude Lorrain, the 17th-century landscape painter, whose name became synonymous with the picturesque aesthetic.
Here contained in a handstitched felted wool box – the choice of material and construction references the “Act for Burying in Woollen” of 1666 and again more radically in 1678 which laid down that all corpses excepting plague victims and the destitute should be buried in wool and no other material whatsoever. Failure to comply resulted in a £5 forfeit. Intended to support the wool trade, it was detrimental to the textile industry in Ireland and Scotland where it had been customary for the deceased to have shrouds of linen. Eventually this wool burying act was extended to Ireland in 1733 before falling out of favour around 1770. However burials in wool are being revived, this time in the form of woollen coffins due to the materials’ biodegradable and sustainable qualities.
Inserted in the box lid a miniature tondo painting of migrants on a raft, the background composition based on the Gericault painting The Raft of The Medusa (1819), with a contemporary image of migrants crossing the Mediterranean. This is only somewhat reflected in the Claude glass, depending on how it is angled and how much the viewer selects to view.
The portable artwork harkens back to manuports and the small folded icons carried by pilgrims, crusaders and conquistadores as well as personal items, memento mori carried in pockets by migrants and refugees lost at sea, buried at sea, unrecorded.
This artwork reflects many of the themes in the exhibition, how we look observe, record and bear witness to the horrors of war and conflict around us – the artists through their tools, materials and visual language making more bearable these horrors – anaesthetic aesthetics.
To Never Look Away at TØN Gallery Dublin/ 7 – 31 March 2024
The artists: Rachel Fallon, Joy Gerrard, Claire Halpin, Myra Jago, Paul Mac Cormaic and Amna Walayat,
The poets: Fióna Bolger and Nasouh Hossari.
Curated by Claire Halpin
To Never Look Away – TØN Gallery Dublin/ 7-31 March 2024 – Exhibition
To Never Look Away at TØN Gallery Dublin
The artists: Rachel Fallon, Joy Gerrard, Claire Halpin, Myra Jago, Paul Mac Cormaic and Amna Walayat
The poets: Fióna Bolger and Nasouh Hossari. Curated by Claire Halpin
To view full list of artworks in the exhibition click here.
The exhibition was accompanied by a catologue which can be viewed here.
Arts Council Agility Award Recipient
Delighted to announce I have been awarded the Arts Council Agility Award which will facilitate me to have more dedicated time and space in the studio and focused research time to develop new work for forthcoming exhibition at TØN Gallery Dublin in March 2024.
Thank you to the Arts Council of Ireland for their recognition of my work and practice. Much appreciated.
Winter Newsletter 2023 – Happy Christmas and New Year!
Welcome to my Winter Newsletter 2023 and what a year it has been! A huge thanks and appreciation to all the galleries, museums, artists, curators, writers, patrons, podcasters, viewers and buyers who have supported my work throughout the year and made 2023 a great year. Here’s a look back to some of the highlights from this year. Looking forward to very exciting exhibition plans being hatched with TØN Dublin in early 2024…watch this space!
Happy Christmas and New Year to one and all!
Claire
2023 brought many international exhibition opportunities, most significantly my first international solo exhibition – Primo Piatto at Galleria Cabaret Voltaire in Rome in March. Such an honour, experience and opportunity to exhibit in the Monti in the great city of Rome! The exhibition was very well received and reviewed and included paintings from the Augmented Auguries series. newly created Migrant Souvenir plates and a site specific historic sculpture – The Lost Heart of Daniel O’Connell.This intriguing work, through a sequence of events was bequested to the Church of St. Agata dei Goti, Rome for permanent exhibition in the church…My Body to Ireland, My Heart to Rome…. Donal Fallon, historian chats with me about it in his great podcast Three Castles Burning.
During the summer my work was exhibited in Summer Salon at Red Sheep Gallery, Klockestrand, Sweden, In the Cross Fire at SEAS Brighton as part of International Refugee week. Other group exhibitions included Mermaid 21 at Mermaid Arts Centre, Bray, Chaos/ Order at dlr Municipal Gallery, Dún Laoghaire, Here and Now at TØN Dublin. Another brilliant collaboration with Madeleine Hellier at Sculpture in Context 2023 – this year Glassophere a three part large scale installation across the Botanic Gardens. I am delighted also to have new work selected for the Winter Exhibition at Hillsboro Fine Art, Dublin currently on exhibition until 13th January 2024.
Another huge honour in 2023 was the inclusion of my work in this seminal publication –
LANDSCAPE AND ENVIRONMENT IN CONTEMPORARY IRISH ART
by YVONNE SCOTT, published by CHURCHILL HOUSE PRESS
This book identifies a representative selection of compelling and intriguing artworks by a range of around one hundred of the most challenging and vibrant artists from, or working in, Ireland or whose work addresses Irish landscapes and environments. Examining them both individually and collectively, this book reveals primary motivations behind strategies of representation.
TWENTY ONE – Mermaid Open Exhibition, Mermaid Arts Centre, Bray until 24 September
Delighted my work was selected for TWENTY ONE – Mermaid Open Exhibition at Mermaid Arts Centre, Bray, 15th July – 24th September.
Curated by Anne Mulleé
Celebrating 21 years of Mermaid’s Visual Art Programme, this group exhibition includes painting, sculpture, multimedia, printmaking and photography from over 80 artists. The work was selected through an Open Call earlier in 2023.
With works from:
Samuel Arnold Keane, Svenja Michelle Behle, Helen G Blake, Sahoko Blake, Joanne Boyle, Lily Boyle, Claire Buckley, Cathy Burke, Mary Butler, Fiona Byrne (1), Fiona Byrne (2), Olga Byrne, Susan Campbell, Tricia Carr, Judy Carroll Deeley, Emanuela Carvisiglia, An Gee Chan, Fiona Coffey, Neil Condron, Nadia Corridan, Caroline Creagh, Julie Cusack, Margaret Daly, Zoe Dillon, Julienne Dockery, Bernadette Doolan, Cathy Dorman, Alison Douglas, Rion Duffy Murphy, Olga Duka, Michael Durand, Aoife Dwyer, Bebhinn Eilish, Olga Evenden, Mary Fahy, Jack Fitzgerald, Sheila Flaherty, Pauline Flynn, Ursula Foley, John Foley, Noelle Gallagher, Margot Galvin, David Goldberg, Nasrin Golden, Aideen Griffin, Claire Halpin, Kevin Hamilton, Jacki Hanlon, James Hayes, 1iing Heaney, Maree Hensey, Fabienne Herbert, Aoife Herrity, Sylvia Hill, Elizabeth Hogan, Myra Jago, Paula Kearney, Danny Kelly, Laura Kelly, Ann Kennedy, Lynn Kennedy, James Kenny, Joanna Kidney, Anastasiia Kovtun, Oonagh Latchford, Barbara Lee, Megan Luddy O’Leary, Susan Madert, Linda Marshall, Irene McCabe, Banbha McCann, Shane McCormack, Emily McGardle, Lieselle McMahon, Denise McShannon, Ruth Medjber, Niall Meehan, Ciaran Meister, James Mellor, Susan Montgomery, Cecilia Moore, Marzieh Nazemzadeh, Sinead Ní Mhaonaigh, Padhraig Nolan, Brigid O’Brien, Cólin O’Connell + Michelle Doyle, Carmel O’Connor, Sorca O’Farrell, Eoin O’Malley, Daithi O’Manachain, Ciaran Patterson, Elizabeth Petcu, Yanny Petters, Adrienne Pope Fagan, Nicholas Robinson, Daniel Rodriguez Castro, Don Rorke, Colleen Roshenstock, Anna Maria Savage, Daniel Sexton, Clara Sheridan Bryson, Elinor Sherwood, Stephanie Sloan, Vincent Smith, Vauney Strahan, Jordan Taylor, Brian Teeling, Patrick Theobald, Rebekka Tomal, Laura Trueman, Miriam van Gelderen, Geraldine Verastegui Flores, Doru Viorel Ivan, Catherine Mary Ward, Ann Marie Webb, Dianne Whyte
TWENTY ONE continues at Mermaid Arts Centre until 24th September
Link here
CHAOS/ ORDER, dlr Open Exhibition, Municipal Gallery, dlr LexIcon, 23 June – 3 Sept 2023
Chaos/Order – dlr Open Exhibition 2023
Friday 23 June to Sunday 3 September
Municipal Gallery dlr LexIcon
Selected and curated by Ann Mulrooney
Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council is delighted to present the upcoming dlr Open Exhibition of visual art by artists who have studied in, are originally from, or are living or working in the County. The work was selected and curated by Ann Mulrooney of Cartoon Saloon after an open-submission process.
“The world is often a chaotic place. As humans we are built to be sensory receivers, retrospectively filtering the chaos to create pattern and meaning. But artists do it a little differently – maybe they spend longer in the hinterland between order and chaos, or maybe their filters are broader and more open to the unexpected…to quote Nietzsche, “one must face chaos to give birth to a star”.
That’s what I’m interested in exploring in this open submission – order, chaos, how we create pattern and meaning from it all and what we learn about ourselves in doing so.”
Ann Mulrooney, 2023.
Delighted to have my work Theatre Shelter Mariupol selected for this exhibition, and honoured to be in a great line up of artists. The exhibition is beautifully curated by Ann Mulrooney – describing the curatorial approach as a U bend of happiness and works grouped in different themes or senses within that…so my painting is fittingly in the apocalyptic section.
Chaos/ Order, dlr Open Exhibition continues at Municipal Gallery, dlr LexIcon, Dún Laoghaire until 3 Sept.
Primo Piatto – Claire Halpin – Gallery Cabaret Voltaire Roma – until 4th April 2023
EXHIBITION INSTALL IMAGES: THE PAINTINGS
Paintings (right to left)
Afghan Flight
Drone Strike Kabul
Verified Falsehood
Theatre Shelter Mariupol
Libricide
Each painting:
Oil on Gesso, 30cm X 40cm, 2022
€500
Afghan Flight, Oil on Gesso, 30cm-x-40cm, 2022 
Drone Strike Kabul, Oil on Gesso, 30cm X 40cm, 2022 
Verified Falsehood, Oil on Gesso, 30cm x 40cm, 2022 
Theatre Shelter Mariupol, Oil on Gesso, 30cm x 40cm, 2022 
Libricide, Oil on Gesso board, 30cm-x-40cm, 2022 
HR3C Cabal Cargo, Oil on gesso, 30cm x 40cm, 2022
PRIMO PIATTO
Claire Halpin solo exhibition
An Irish Artist in Rome
Gallery Cabaret Voltaire,
Via Panisperna, 87, 00184 Roma RM, Italy
http://www.galleriacabaretvoltaire.it
18th March – 4th April 2023
Vernissage! Primo Piatto – Claire Halpin – solo exhibition opens at Gallery Cabaret Voltaire Roma – 18 March 2023
Primo Piatto – Claire Halpin – solo exhibition opens at Gallery Cabaret Voltaire Roma!
Great opening night! Thanks very much all for coming from near and far to make this a very special exhibition opening!
Huge thanks to Manola @cabaretvoltaireroma for supporting and installing the exhibition.
More images of the exhibition to follow!
Primo Piatto – Claire Halpin – solo exhibition at Gallery Cabaret Voltaire Roma continues until 4th April 2023.
Artist Interview: Tuesday 4th April at 6pm. All welcome.
Galleria Cabaret Voltaire
Via Panisperna, 87, Monti, 00184 Roma RM, Italy
http://www.galleriacabaretvoltaire.it
Claire Halpin – Primo Piatto – Gallerie Cabaret Voltaire Roma – 18 Marzo – 4 Aprile 2023
Primo Piatto mostra personale
Claire Halpin
Galleria Cabaret Voltaire, Roma
18 Marzo – 4 Aprile 2023.
Vernissage: 7pm Sabato 18th Marzo 2023
Primo Piatto – Mostra personale dell’artista irlandese Claire Halpin, esplora temi e concetti intorno a territori e storie contesi attraverso la pittura. Creati negli ultimi due anni, questi dipinti rispondono a diversi luoghi di conflitto e protesta: dalla pandemia, all’assalto al Campidoglio, alla crisi dei rifugiati, all’attuale guerra in Ucraina. Lo spettacolo e la teatralità del conflitto e della protesta documentati e registrati attraverso la pittura. Le opere tentano di navigare nella complessità del teatro di guerra contemporaneo e delle guerre culturali mentre il campo di battaglia si sposta nello spazio del feed online e dal vivo di notizie e immagini multimediali. Un flusso costante di contenuti, reali, falsi e creati da chi per chi.
I temi dell’opera riguardano la percezione e l’interpretazione delle immagini. – come la lettura delle immagini e la loro risonanza è influenzata dal modo in cui vengono create, rappresentate e dal contesto in cui vengono visualizzate.
Mi sforzo di creare dipinti che sollevino domande su come scegliamo di registrare la storia e sulla veridicità della pittura, della fotografia e dei media nel documentare la storia futura.
Primo Piatto include una nuova serie di dipinti di piatti ricordo creati per questa mostra. Dall’Italia e dall’Irlanda dipinti con un’immagine alternativa al loro intento originale come souvenir turistico cliché dall’Irlanda e dall’Italia.
Primo Piatto – il titolo della mostra si riferisce a un’introduzione al mio lavoro, al processo di una “prima tavola” o prima edizione in stampa e anche ai “piatti ricordo” dipinti.
Biografia dell’artista
Claire Halpin è un’artista, curatrice ed educatrice artistica nata a Dublino, in Irlanda. Si è laureata alla TU, Dublino con lode in pittura e ha continuato a completare il suo MFA Gray’s School of Art, Aberdeen, in Scozia. Claire ha esposto ampiamente in mostre personali e collettive in Irlanda, la più recente mostra personale Augmented Auguries alla Olivier Cornet Gallery, Dublino e The Narrow Gate of the Here and Now; Protest and Conflict all’IMMA, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublino. E a livello internazionale a Londra, Scozia, Georgia, Francia, Bulgaria, Stati Uniti e Canada. Le opere di Claire sono incluse in collezioni nazionali, universitarie, aziendali e private in Irlanda e a livello internazionale. Questa è la prima mostra personale di Claire fuori dall’Irlanda e la prima mostra a Roma, in Italia.
Artwork: Claire Halpin – Libricide, Oil on Gesso, 20cm X 25cm, 2022
Contatti:
Rome Ireland
Galleria Cabaret Voltaire https://clairehalpin2011.wordpress.com/
Via Panisperna, 87, 00184 Roma RM, Italy clairo.halpin@gmail.com
Winter Group Show at Olivier Cornet Gallery – Opening Thursday 15th December @ 6pm
2012-2022, a decade of exhibitions at the Olivier Cornet Gallery
A Winter group show curated by Olivier Cornet and his interns Lisa Brero and Mary Rose Porter
Featuring work by Annika Berglund, Aisling Conroy, Hugh Cummins, Mary A. Fitzgerald, Jordi Forniés, Conrad Frankel, David Fox, Claire Halpin, Nickie Hayden, Eoin Mac Lochlainn, Miriam McConnon, Seán Mulcahy, Sheila Naughton, Yanny Petters, Kelly Ratchford, Freda Rupp, Vicky Smith and Susanne Wawra
Exhibition Launch: Thursday 15 December, 6pm with Mary Pavlides, Chairwoman of the Contemporary Irish Art Society (CIAS).
The Olivier Cornet Gallery is delighted to present this anniversary exhibition with works that mark important milestones in the life of the gallery and/or the career of the artists. Some stand out group exhibitions, referenced in the show, would include ‘A Terrible Beauty’ (2014), ‘Hopscotch’ (2015), ‘2°C’ (2017), presented at the VUE Art Fairs (RHA Dublin) – and our annual Bloomsday exhibitions. Sometimes described as ‘intriguing’ or ‘innovative’, these exhibitions have often challenged our perception of contemporary art in Ireland.
Featuring works from solo exhibitions by established artists such as Claire Halpin, Eoin Mac Lochlainn, Miriam McConnon and Yanny Petters, ‘2012-2022…’ will also reflect on the ways in which art can help us ask relevant questions, meditate on the state of affairs in the current epoch, empathize with -and relate to- each other and negotiate our way forward in these challenging times.
The exhibition continues until 15 February 2023.
Opening hours: Tuesday to Friday: 11am-6pm (till 8pm on Thursdays)Saturday & Sunday: 12 noon-5pm
See more work from the show here:
https://www.oliviercornetgallery.com/2012-2022-anniversary-winter-group-show-olivier-cornet-gallery
Painting featured: Fall of Mariupol, Diptych, Oil on Canvas, 60cm X 150cm, 2022.
Panoramic Pandemic Diptych Acquired for Private Collection
Delighted and proud to announce the diptych Panoramic Pandemic has been acquired for a Private Collection which will be traveling to France. Very much looking forward to seeing it installed in its new maison! Thanks to the collectors for supporting my work, the affirmation of my work and for purchasing this work. This acquisition highlights the importance of private buyers, collectors and patrons in both supporting the arts, galleries and buying Irish art.
Panoramic Pandemic was a key painting in my recent solo exhibition Augmented Auguries at Olivier Cornet Gallery, Dublin.
More paintings from the exhibition are still available to view and purchase at the storeroom at Olivier Cornet Gallery.
View here: https://www.oliviercornetgallery.com/claire-halpin-augmented-auguries-solo-show-2022
Olivier Cornet Gallery, 3 Great Denmark Street, Dublin 1
Open Tues- Friday/ 11-6pm and Sat-Sun / 12-5pm and by appointment.
Claire Halpin solo exhibition Augmented Auguries at Olivier Cornet Gallery/ Sept – Oct 2022
My solo exhibition Augmented Auguries was shown at Olivier Cornet Gallery in September/ October 2022. The exhibition received huge number of visitors and viewers and great response and review of the artworks and the exhibition overall.
Here is short video walk through of the exhibition and documentation images of the exhibition installed.
Thanks again to all who visited, viewed, responded and purchased the works. Thanks again to Joy Gerrard for opening the show, Brenda Moore McCann for the in conversation and of course to Olivier Cornet and his team at the gallery for their support and enthusiasm throughout the exhibition.
You can view further artworks from the exhibition here:
https://www.oliviercornetgallery.com/claire-halpin-augmented-auguries-solo-show-2022
and in the 3D virtual gallery here:
https://artspaces.kunstmatrix.com/en/exhibition/10701441/augmented-auguries-by-claire-halpin
Works from the exhibition are still available to view and purchase at the gallery storeroom.
Olivier Cornet Gallery
3 Great Denmark Street, Dublin 1
Opening hours:
Tuesday to Friday: 11am-6pm (till 8pm on Thursdays)
Saturday & Sunday: 12 noon-5pm
Augmented Auguries by Claire Halpin opens at Olivier Cornet Gallery, Dublin, 8th Sept 2022
Fantastic opening night of Augmented Auguries at Olivier Cornet Gallery! Great crowd, great conversations, great response to the work and insightful and beautifully eloquent opening speech by Joy Gerrard. Augmented Auguries is accompanied by a text of conversations with Brenda Moore McCann.
The exhibition continues until 9th October 2022.
Olivier Cornet Gallery, 3 Great Denmark Street, Dublin 1, D01 NV63, Ireland
info@oliviercornetgallery.com 087 288 7261 https://www.oliviercornetgallery.com/
Opening hours: Tuesday to Friday: 11am-6pm (till 8pm on Thursdays)
Saturday & Sunday: 12 noon-5pm
Janet Mullarney RIP – A Great Artist, A Great Loss
Very sad to hear of the passing of the amazingly brilliant artist Janet Mullarney.
A great dame of Irish art.
A great loss to the Irish and International art world.
Strangely and weirdly I was thinking of this artwork earlier this week.
A great image of isolation in these current strange times.
Ar dheis Dé go raibh a hanam.
3rd April 2020
Artwork: Giotto’s Circle, Janet Mullarney, Highlanes Gallery Drogheda, 2015
Somewhere between perception and reality – Exhibition Opening at Olivier Cornet Gallery – 9th December at 3pm
Somewhere between perception and reality
An exhibition first presented at VUE 2018, Ireland’s National Contemporary Art Fair ( RHA, Dublin)
Olivier Cornet Gallery, 3 Great Denmark Street, Dublin 1 (beside Belvedere College)
Exhibition Opening Sunday 9 December 2018 – 3pm
Afghan Tour, Diptych, Oil on Canvas, 60cm X 150cm, 2016
The show features work by gallery artists
HUGH CUMMINS, JOHN FITZSIMONS, JORDI FORNIES, CONRAD FRANKEL, CLAIRE HALPIN (shortlisted for the 2018 Savills Art Prize), EOIN MAC LOCHLAINN, MIRIAM MCCONNON, YANNY PETTERS, KELLY RATCHFORD and FREDA RUPP.
The exhibition also features works by our AGA members, namely
AISLING CONROY, DAVID FOX, PAUL JAMES KEARNEY, SHEILA NAUGHTON and VICKY SMITH.
‘Somewhere between perception and reality’ is an exploration of the world of appearances, of surface scratching and the way we have to read between the lines -or images and layers- to get to the core of things.
Sometimes we have to look within to understand what’s without, but are we really looking? In the current climate of fake news, half-truths, rushed verdicts and online knee-jerk reactions, maybe art can help us navigate the tortuous roads of reality by asking us to look again and again, to consider how others perceive our world. Then we might see theirs or at least find common ground…
Opening hours
Tue-Fri 11am-6pm (till 8pm Thu) Sat-Sun 12-5pm
Monday closed, by appointment only.
This exhibition runs until 17 February 2019.
The gallery will be closed from Sunday, 23rd December 2018 to Friday, 4th January 2019. Our show will resume on Saturday, 5th January 2019.
image: Claire Halpin, ‘Afghan Tour’, oil on canvas, diptych, 60x150cm
Olivier Cornet Gallery
3 Great Denmark Street (beside Belvedere College, off Parnell Square), Dublin 1
Opening hours:
Tues to Fri: 11am to 6pm (till 8pm on Thursdays), Sat & Sun: 12 noon to 5pm, Closed on Mondays (or viewing by appointment only)
http://www.oliviercornetgallery.com
info@oliviercornetgallery.com
Facebook: Olivier Cornet Gallery
Twitter: OC_Gallery
+353 (0)872887261
Artists Panel Talk at Concerning The Other Exhibition @ 6.30pm on Friday 6th October
Last chance to get to see Concerning the Other exhibition with the Artist Panel Talk on Friday 6th October at 6.30pm at Olivier Cornet Gallery, 3 Great Denmark Street.
This panel discussion with the curators and some of the collaborating artists will explore various elements of the project – how the artists dealt with each other’s work, how they found the process of having their work altered, how the public engaged with the process week by week, how people responded to the final works, what effect (if any) the works had, and many more questions that have arisen since the beginning of the project.
It promises to be a very interesting evening as they will be talking about their experience during the project and answering any questions you might have. This free event will be chaired by Michael Coyne who is currently undertaking an MA in Visual and Critical Studies with the Dublin School of Creative Arts at DIT.
Concerning the Other a collaborative art project which involved ten contemporary artists working together on one hundred pieces of art, to promote diversity and concern for minorities in these days of mounting racism and intolerance.
The Artists: Brian Fay, Claire Halpin, James Hanley RHA, Joanna Kidney, Eoin Mac Lochlainn, Miriam McConnon, Kate Murphy, Ben Readman, Gail Ritchie and Susanne Wawra.
The Curators: Olivier Cornet, Claire Halpin and Eoin Mac Lochlainn
Concerning the Other: https://www.facebook.com/ConcerningtheOther/
Olivier Cornet Gallery: http://www.oliviercornetgallery.com/
Glomar Response Solo Exhibition at Olivier Cornet Gallery continues until 2nd October
My solo exhibition Glomar Response opened at Olivier Cornet Gallery on 11th September with a great crowd of assembled artists, friends and family. Brian Fay, Artist and Head of Fine Art at DIT officially launched the exhibition and both eloquently and insightful responses to the new work. See images above.
The exhibition continues at Olivier Cornet Gallery until Sunday 2nd October.
Olivier Cornet Gallery
3 Great Denmark St, Dublin 1
+353 (0)87 288 7261
info@oliviercornetgallery.com
www.oliviercornetgallery.com
Opening hours:
Tue-Fri 11am-6pm, Sat-Sun 12-5pm, Monday closed, by appointment only.
Glomar Response – Claire Halpin – Solo Exhibition at Olivier Cornet Gallery – Opening 11th September
Citadel I, Oil on gesso, 37cm x 57cm, 2015
11 September-2 October 2016
The Olivier Cornet Gallery requests the pleasure of your company for the official opening of
GLOMAR RESPONSE
a solo exhibition of new work by Claire Halpin
Official opening: Sunday 11 September 2016, 3pm, Olivier Cornet Gallery, 3 Great Denmark Street, Dublin 1.
Guest speaker: Brian Fay, Artist and Head of Fine Art DIT
Artist Statement
“My work explores themes and concepts around contested territories and histories through painting, drawing and installation. This new body of work attempts to navigate the complexity of the contemporary theatre of war as battlefield expands to battlespace in the information age. The means, methods and technologies of modern warfare from mass clandestine surveillance programmes to unmanned warfare and its real time reporting through the lens of the media.
The paintings employ imagery from the media, surveillance, military history, maps, archaeology, early civilization, bible stories and from the canon of art history of Byzantine and Early Renaissance to weave together a narrative through painting. I am influenced by the complex compositions of space and time in Renaissance paintings allowing multiple narratives to co-exist in the same picture plane and use these compositional devices in my work with reference to the aesthetic of gaming and virtual reality. In the Citadel Series the images are isolated from source and context like props suspended in time without context as to their significance as elements in a complex narrative of a contested territory.
The themes in the work concern the perception and interpretation of images. – how the reading of images and their resonance is influenced by how they are created, depicted and the context in which they are viewed. I strive to create work that raises questions about how we choose to record history and the veracity of painting, photography, and the media in documenting future history.” Claire Halpin, August 2016
About the exhibition title: Glomar Response
In United States law, the term Glomar Response refers to a “neither confirm nor deny” response to a Freedom of Information Act request. The Glomar Explorer was a large salvage vessel built by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) for its covert Project Azorian – an attempted salvaging of a sunken Soviet submarine in 1974. Aware of the pending publication of a story in the LA Times, the CIA sought to stop the story’s publication and devised the “Glomar Response”. So as not to divulge to the Soviet Union either what the CIA knew or did not know, the response read: “We can neither confirm nor deny the existence of the information requested but, hypothetically, if such data were to exist, the subject matter would be classified, and could not be disclosed.”. The original text was written by Walt Logan (pseudonym), Associate General Counsel at the CIA.The Glomar Response precedent still stands, and has bearing in Freedom of Information cases today.
“Glomar” is the abbreviation of Global Marine, the Howard Hughes company commissioned by the CIA to build the Glomar Explorer.
Olivier Cornet Gallery
3 Great Denmark St, Dublin 1
+353 (0)87 288 7261
info@oliviercornetgallery.com
www.oliviercornetgallery.com
Opening hours:
Tue-Fri 11am-6pm, Sat-Sun 12-5pm, Monday closed, by appointment only.
The Bulgarians Are Coming – Water Tower Art Fest in London
21st-28th October 2013
Bulgarian Cultural Institute, 188 Queens Gate, South Kensington, London
24th October 2013
Standpoint Gallery, 45 Coronet Street, London
www.standpointlondon.co.uk
The Bulgarians Are Coming – an exhibition dedicated to free exchange of ideas and collaborations between artists from different nations. The idea behind this show is provoked by the UK press prediction of mass immigration in 2014 by Bulgarians and Romanians with granted work permits. The artworks to be shown are from international and Bulgarian artists, all participants of the Water Tower Art Fest – an artist run initiative. Water Tower Art Fest is the biggest international art event in Bulgaria with its seven years history in the development of contemporary arts in alternative spaces with socially engaged artworks from national and international artist’s participants. The collaborations made during the festival have extended themselves outside Europe, making an independent network for artistic exchange and communication.
Artists include: Alexandra McGllynn (UK) Andrey Vrabchev (BG), Andy Broadey (UK), Anna Simeonoff (BG), Arran Poole and Mark Summers (UK), Caitlin and Andrew Webb – Ellis (UK/Canada), Claire Halpin (IRL), Emil Mirazchiev (BG), Galya Yotova (BG), Gareth Bell Jones (UK), Herve Constant (UK), Hitomi Kammai (JAPAN/UK), John O’Hare (UK), Juan DelGado (UK), Kenneth G. Hay and Seetha- Moorland Productions (UK), Marieta Tsenova (BG), Nia Pushkarova (BG), Remi Rem (UK), Vessela Mihailova and Tiago Martins (BG/Portugal).
This exhibition will feature two of my prints from the Micro Aviary Series and my dvd Sentinel will be screened at Standpoint Gallery on 24 October.
www.watertowerartfest.com
www.facebook.com/watertowerartfest
The Palimpsest/ Rianú Project at Artisterium VI, Tbilisi, Georgia
Curated by Claire Halpin and Eoin Mac Lochlainn
Tbilisi History Museum, 4th-14th October 2013
The Palimpsest/ Rianú Project is a collaborative art project which brings together eight Irish artists to develop work to represent Ireland at Artisterium VI in Tbilisi, Georgia, 2013. The eight participating artists are: Brian Fay, Mary A.Fitzgerald, Claire Halpin, Colin Martin, Eoin Mac Lochlainn, Aoife McGarrigle, Kate Murphy and Nuala Ní Fhlathúin.
Each artist was invited to develop an initial image which was emailed to the next artist in the group. The second artist responded to it by working over it and then emailing it on to the third artist who also responded to it and passed it on. The process continued until each of the eight artists had worked on each of the eight images. A palimpsest is a manuscript page from a scroll or book from which the text has been scraped or washed off and which can then be used again.
The theme for Artisterium VI – “Am I you?” – is about exploring how we deal with ’the other’ in our lives – other ethnic groups, other nations, other people – a collaborative project between artists is particularly relevant and is the inspiration for the curatorial concept. Each artist and including Ian Joyce also developed an individual artwork responding to the curatorial theme to be exhibited as Ireland’s representation at Artisterium VI.
Cló and The Living Archive invited Claire Halpin and Eoin Mac Lochlainn to curate The Palimpsest / Rianú Project for Artisterium VI, Tbilisi International Art Exhibition in October 2013. The The Palimpsest/ Rianú Project will be exhibited in Ireland in 2014.
Further Information
The Palimpsest/ Rianú Project http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sVzv_IYKDSI
Artisterium: www.artisterium.org
Sculpture in Context 2013, Botanic Gardens, Dublin
This year once again I collaborated with my sister Madeleine Hellier to develop two site specific artworks for Sculpture in Context 2013 at National Botanic Gardens opening on Wednesday 4th September and continuing until 18th October.
Birdsong
This work takes as its inspiration from the naturally formed silhouetted space provided by the lhuge redwood tree – an area that always draws the eye whether starting out on a visit to the gardens, returning from a walk via curvilinear house or viewing the gardens from the visitor centre. The piece comprises five wires impregnated with bird feed which will be visible from all aspects to create the impression of a musical stave and with a separately constructed treble clef to complete the work. The intention is that over the course of the exhibition the interaction of wild birds with the piece will create evolving and changing birdsongs from the plain chant of a single bird on the stave to the potential of rich chords created by larger gatherings.
Fordlândia takes its inspiration from the now-abandoned, prefabricated industrial town established in the Amazon Rainforest in 1928 by American industrialist Henry Ford to secure a source of cultivated rubber for the automobile manufacturing operations of the Ford Motor Company in the United States. His thousands of new cars needed millions of tyres, which were very expensive to produce when buying raw materials from the established rubber lords. To that end, Ford established Fordlândia – a tiny piece of America which was transplanted into the Amazon rain forest for a single purpose: to create the largest rubber plantation on the planet avoiding the dependence on British Malayan rubber. Though enormously ambitious, the project was ultimately a fantastic failure.
This artwork comprises a settlement of scale model replicas of the clapboard American style houses, the power plant, watertower and the Island of Innocence – the settlement of bars and nightclubs established upstream by the inhabitants to circumvent Ford’s prohibition on alcohol, women and tobacco in the town. In the same way that Ford attempted to transplant a tiny part of America to the Amazon rainforest this artwork transplants a tiny model of Fordlândia to under the rubber plants at The Great Palm House.
Reconstructions at Droichead Arts Centre, Drogheda
This solo exhibition Reconstructions at Droichead Arts Centre in January/ February 2012 was the third showing of this work completed over the last two years. The exhibition had travelled from Cavan County Museum in May 2011 to Talbot Gallery in Dublin in October 2011. With each exhibition the size, space and architecture gallery space determined the curation of the exhibition – from the context of the historic former convent and oratory space in Cavan County Museum to the contemporary white cube gallery space of Droichead Art Centre. This series of exhibitions explored how the influencing factors of time, space, scale and context can determine how we perceive and interpret paintings and images.
Claire Halpin Artist 