Launched by Susan Madert, a new exhibition, Threshold, will be on display in the Atrium, Civic Offices, Athlone until Friday, July 28.
The works in this exhibition consider the urban environment and record the artist’s practice of looking and listening intently to the comings and goings of civilisation. The absence of figures invites the viewer to construct their own narrative for these are narrative paintings.
The exteriors interrogate ideas of exclusion. The spaces depicted are liminal or transitional spaces between what is and what may be.
A number of paintings feature hotel interiors. Madert explores these as “transitory spaces whose success depends on there being no trace of past or future inhabitants.” The artist is interested in the requirement of the erasure of all human connection in these spaces while they simultaneously attempt to convey a sense of home.
The reception spaces explore the sense of alienation often felt in urban environments and the absence of figures heightens this sense as well as acting as an invitation to imagined narratives.
Inside or outside these works refer to Walter Benjamin and the art of getting lost in urbanity, an imaginative ideal, whereby the mind is allowed the free will to cross the thresholds of the mundane.
Susan Madert studied at the London College of Printing, Bath Academy of Art and Goldsmiths’ College, University of London. Her work is currently on show in the 193rd RHA Annual Exhibition, in Connect at ArtNetdlr and will be included in Twenty One, celebrating 21 years of Mermaid Arts Centre. Susan’s work has also been shown at Rua Red, the Hamilton Gallery, Sligo, the Courthouse Gallery, Clare, and Signal Arts Centre.
