August brings art to the fore in Kilkenny and one of the city’s newest exhibition spaces, the Kilkenny Art Café will be awash with the works of some of the country’s leading visual artists.
As a part of the fringe event to the Kilkenny Arts Festival, the Kilkenny Art Café will host works from the Sol Art Gallery on Dawson Street in Dublin from August 3 until the end of the month.
The Sol Art Gallery represents some of Ireland’s leading and most established artists and they regularly exhibit at art fairs around the country, occasionally picking up new artists along the way.
The café will also play host to an exhibition by local photographic artist Claire Bourke from Greenshill during Arts Week, who last year embarked on an Arctic adventure in the name of her craft.
As well as providing a home for a wide variety of visual art works, the Kilkenny Art Café will also be commencing two week-long art classes for children in August.
The kids classes will be run by Ashley Walsh (of m2ifoto ) from August 2 to 6 and August 9 to 13 from 10.30am to 12pm and they are designed around art education projects based on artists and the utilisation of different mediums.
Week one will include a Mondrian painting exercise, watercolour woven painting exploring cool and warm tones, Chihuly garden sculpture, print making exercises and Picasso cubist portraits.
Week two will feature Matisse collages, Klimts tree of life painting, a quilling paper project, Goldsworthy group sculptures and Calder mobiles. Book ahead of time to take advantage of the special rate of €100 per week. Drop-ins are welcome at a fee of €25 and classes are limited to 10 children per day.
The Kilkenny Art Café will also host a narrative story telling on the evening of August 8 at 7pm. The café stocks handmade ‘Made in Kilkenny’ crafts and regularly exhibits work by local artists in the gallery.
They also sell homemade soup, fresh sandwiches and panini and Italian coffee and specialist teas and open until midnight. So get a true taste of Arts week this August and visit the Kilkenny Art Café at 51 Kieran Street or call (056 ) 7772824.
