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 at TØN Gallery Dublin – Talks & Events Programme
As curator of the exhibition To Never Look Away at TØN Gallery Dublin, participation and engagement inclusion and dialogue are hugely important through my programming of a wide range of different events, talks, tours and conversations during the exhibition for all ages and backgrounds – from the students of Central Model Primary School to Grandparents Against Racism, and everyone else in between! Thanks to Temple Bar Gallery ans Studios for including the exhibition in their Art Walk tour too! Here is some images from the programme of events. Firstly above – 3rd Class, Central Model SNS for a VTS/ Visual Thinking Strategies discussion with myself and Rachel Fallon.
TALKS@TØN DUBLIN: Poetry Reading at To Never Look Away
Sunday 24th March/ 1.00 – 2.30pm
Poets Nasouh Hossari and Fíona Bolger joined with friends performing poetry in Arabic and English and music by Gaza musician Abdulaziz. Followed by an open mic for Gaza. Works by Palestinian poets encouraged and warmly welcomed.
TALKS@TØN DUBLIN: Artists In Conversation at To Never Look Away
Wednesday 27th March/ 6.00 – 7.30pm
Sara O’Rourke, (Dept. of Anthropology, Maynooth University), Claire Halpin (Curator/ Artist/ Arts Educator), Rachel Fallon (Artist), Brenda Aherne (Artist/ Mini Placard Movement) & Exhibiting Artists
Another great evening of though provoking conversation responding to the prescient themes, subjects, concepts, artworks and art practices in the exhibition To Never Look Away at TØN Gallery.
All were welcome, no bookings necessary. Donations to Médecins Sans Frontières Gaza Appeal.
A huge thank you each of the exhibiting artists – Rachel Fallon, Joy Gerrard, Claire Halpin, Myra Jago, Paul Mac Cormaic and Amna Walayat, and the poets Fióna Bolger and Nasouh Hossari – who participated and facilitated discussions as part of the exhibition programme. And a huge thank you to all of you who came along to some or all of the events. It really has been an amazing experience – thought provoking, inspiring, discursive, important, emotive and moving in equal measures.
Thanks to Mark and Helen at TØN Gallery for the invitation and opportunity to curate and produce this important and timely exhibition and programme of events – opening up new spaces for collaboration and discussion.
To Never Look Away at TØN Gallery/ 7 – 31 March 2024
Here and Now, Group Exhibition at Tøn Gallery Dublin
Here and Now
36 artists
TØN Dublin
Curated by Helen Kirk and Mark Redden.
TØN Dublin, 25 Temple Lane, Temple Bar, Dublin
3 November – 1 December 2023
A menagerie of works in painting, drawing, photography, sculpture and fibre arts.
Curated by Helen Kirk
“When grouped together this selection of work shapes a debate around the elasticity of artistic philosophy. Where does creative passion originate? What is driving production today? What ideas are new? From what we can see, these artists are working in the Here and Now. It’s do or die.”
Artists:
Suzanne Dolan, Moezee, Lorraine Lawlor, Pablo Marín Garcia, Sinead McKillican, Tina Poole, Maree Hensey, Nikki Foster, Ciaran Meister, Anna Marie Savage, Aisling Dunne, Kelan Molloy, Kevin McSherry, Richard Coghlan, Elize de Beer, Ishmael Claxton, Shane Hynan, Christopher Banahan, Julianne Guinee, Daria Ivanishchenko, Claire Halpin, Maree Hensey, Kam Catala, Kevin Judge, Paula Lemaine, Emily McGardle, Sheila Flaherty, Cynthia Fanning, Rachel Kenny, Desmond Kenny, Eva Vitkute, Sorcha McNamarra, Francesc Ruiz Abad, Tom Campbell
Artwork:
Libricide Ukraine II,
Oil on gesso, 20cm X 25cm, 2022
Claire Halpin Artist 