Custom House Studios at Westport Quay are pleased to host the exhibition Ionospheric by Michelle Dunne which will be opened by Anne McCarthy from Mayo County Council at Custom House Studios Gallery on Thursday, August 10, at 7.30pm. The exhibition will run every day until September 3.
In this collection the artist is led by a strong sense of curiosity, which leads her to research, explore, deconstruct and reinterpret the world, revealing what is visible but not fully realised or perceived. She has taken holly leaves (Ilex aquifolium ) and deconstructed them by combining and altering and using traditional paper making processes from China and Egypt.
These processes reveal a multiple of materials contained within one leaf, translucent, light-weight, an exciting vehicle for the artist to work with. Initially this research was to establish a material with which to draw on a screen (canvas ) within a bath of water. However, given the nature inherent within leaves, its forms induced the artist to explore the three-dimensional realm and incorporating the subtle usage of light.
Concurrent to the development of this work with a natural material, the artist also delved into the history of trees in Ireland. The Brehon laws which protected and classified them, ancient manuscripts, Persian architecture, biology, chemistry, geometry, symbolism, language, etymology, linguistics, metallic dyes and ancient inks, to name a few of the tangents she pursued. None of this research is in vain though, it all lends to compiling a body of work that reveals the unseen and gives form to a body of work that conveys an inherent language within the natural world reflected in the microcosms of leaves.
