The Olivier Cornet Gallery is delighted to present RAW WAR, a solo exhibition of new work by gallery artist CLAIRE HALPIN. This is the artist’s second solo show with the gallery since she joined us in 2016.
The show will launch at 7pm, Thursday 12 September 2019 at the Olivier Cornet Gallery, 3 Great Denmark Street, Dublin 1.It will run until the 6th of October 2019.
Guest speaker: Aoife Ruane
Director of the Highlanes Gallery, Drogheda
Artist Statement:
“My work explores themes and concepts around contested territories and histories through painting, video 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 covert machinations of the perpetual war that is arms deals, mercenaries, remote surveillance programmes and drone warfare away from 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 HalpinAugust 2019
Claire Halpin graduated from D.I.T with B.A Honours in Fine Art in 1996 and completed her M.F.A at Gray’s School of Art, Aberdeen, Scotland. She has exhibited widely in group exhibitions in Ireland and abroad including 189th RHA Annual, Dublin; Cáirde Visual, The Model, Sligo; Water Tower Art Festival, Sofia, Bulgaria; The Bulgarians are coming, Standpoint Gallery, London; The Palimpsest/ Rianú Project, The Pearse Museum, Dublin/ Tbilisi History Museum, Georgia and Artisterium VI, Tbilisi International Contemporary Art Exhibition, Georgia.
Most recently and significantly Claire was selected by international curator Inti Guerrero for 38th EVA International – Ireland’s International Biennial of Contemporary Art at Limerick City Gallery. In 2018 Claire was also awarded the DLR Open Exhibition Artist Award by art critic Gemma Tipton for her quietly pointed and detailed painted works Raft I and Raft II exhibited at Arrival, dlr Open Exhibition, Municipal Gallery, dlr LexIcon.
Claire has been represented by Olivier Cornet Gallery since 2016 where she had a solo exhibition – Glomar Response in 2016. The show constituted a milestone exhibition in Claire’s career as it offered viewers a comprehensive survey of the artist’s attempt to navigate the complexity of the contemporary theatre of war and received great response from artists, gallery visitors and general public alike.
Previous solo exhibitions include Reconstructions at Talbot Gallery in 2011 and at Droichead Arts Centre in 2012; Tabula Rasa at Cavan County Museum (2011); Anaesthetic Aesthetics at Rua Red, Tallaght (2010); Always Now at Talbot Gallery, Dublin (2008); Eidetic Amalgams at Basement Gallery, Dundalk (2006) and at Triskel Arts Centre, Cork, and Model Arts Centre, Sligo. Her paintings are included in many private, public and corporate collections in Ireland and abroad.
Image: Claire Halpin, ‘Yeoman Yemen’, oil on canvas, 60cm x 150cm, 2019
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)
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