Art Club—Concurrent

Nicole Byrne, Leo Clarke, Hannah DeChant McMillen, Emma Howe, Jack Marmion, Peggie McKeon, Eve O'Callaghan

Art Club presents Concurrent an exhibition comprised of seven visual artists in collaboration with Dublin based Independent Record Label Bad Soup. The exhibition was cultivated through a series of conversations surrounding young artists engaging in the creative community in Dublin. Obstacles which we face with regard to studio availability and affordable exhibition spaces are catalysts in the process of our making. We hope this collaboration will broaden the parameters in which we find ourselves working in and will spark conversations regarding the importance of solidifying our creative communities.

Event

Biographies:

Nicole Byrne graduated from NCAD in 2017 with a BA in Fine Art print. Her work is suggestive of architectural structures that are in the midst of construction and deconstruction. The materiality of the work is indicative of mass produced industrial matter, both heavy and fragile, which is shaped into new temporary structures and compositions.

Leo Clarke graduated from NCAD Fine Art Print in 2017. The artist's work has since progressed from working with print and drawing to exploring video processes. Interested in the process of construction, Clarke's work documents the activity within certain locations during the physical and visual change of that space over time.

Hannah DeChant McMillen “Waste is what is worthless or unused for human purpose.” Hannah DeChant is an environmental artist; her primary focus is on sustainability in fine art, specifically printmaking. Her work explores ecological concerns; the negative impacts of waste and its toxicity on the earth. She focuses primarily on mapping landfill sites and presenting them on paper made from recycled waste. This work is not only an exercise in practicing sustainable copperplate etching, but also an acknowledgement of environmental issues. Currently DeChant is attempting a material-based collection of “prints” of landfill sites, in the absence of inks. DeChant is a Fine Art Print Graduate from NCAD and a member of Black Church Print Studio in Temple Bar.

Emma Howe, since graduating from NCAD in 2017, she completed a residency in the Burren College of Art and her work has been shown in multiple spaces in Dublin and Wexford. Emma's work is concerned with human experience and the power of framing. She is interested in the translation of images across social media platforms. Working initially from photographs taken on her phone, she then makes oil paintings which, in their abstracted representation of the everyday, exist as antidotes to the saturation of curated versions of “real life” online.

Jack Marmion is either a fine art painter who examines his subject matter and materials through illustrative means and compositions or he's an illustrator who uses techniques associated and developed from fine art painting to produce graphic works. His practice seeks to deal with this crisis of identity; Painter? Illustrator? Maybe both? Does there really need to be a distinction between the two in this day and age? Through the act of continuosly making, he hopes to some day be able to answer these questions. Or for somebody to do it for him. Jack is a Fine Art Print graduate from NCAD and lives and works in Dublin.

Peggie McKeon's work is concerned with the preservation of the past before much of it is erased by time. Traces of life, moments in time and the preservation of memory guide the focus of the artist's work. Written documents, spaces and objects act as time capsules and through repetition, the importance of their abilities to evoke memories is stressed. This is explored through the mediums of drawing and embroidery, recalling the past in a romantic sense. McKeon graduated from Fine Art Print, NCAD in 2017.

Eve O'Callaghan is a painter based in Dublin, working in the field of abstraction and with a materials-based practice. After graduating from NCAD in 2017, Eve was shortlisted for the RDS Visual Art Awards and won the Adam's Award at the RHA Annual in 2018. She is currently shortlisted for the 2019 Hennessy Craig Scholarship.