With Bread, 2013 exhibition, Abigail O’Brien – contemporary artist by Abigail O’Brien

Highlanes Municipal Art Gallery Abigail Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Brien: With Bread

Abigail O’Brien With Bread 13 September – 16 November 2013 Published by Highlanes Gallery, September 2013, in an edition of 1,000 Exhibition Sponsorship: McCloskey’s Bakery, Drogheda, Traditional Artisan Bakery and home of Spiegel’s Bagels and Skinny’s has generously sponsored the exhibition, catalogue and tour. As well as the ongoing financial support of the Arts Council and Drogheda Borough Council, the project was also awarded a special Arts Council Touring Grant.

Exhibition Partners: The Dock, Carrick-on-Shannon, Co. Leitrim Dates: 7 February – 5 April, 2014 Limerick City Gallery of Art, Limerick Dates: January 2015 Design: Fiona O’Reilly, On the Dot Design www.onthedotmultimedia.com Print: Nicholson & Bass www.nicholsonbass.com Highlanes Municipal Art Gallery Laurence Street Drogheda Co. Louth Ireland T. + 00 353 (0) 41 – 9803311 F. + 00 353 (0) 41 – 9803313 W. www.highlanes.ie E. info@highlanes.ie

ISBN: 978-0-9572946-1-5 ©2013 Highlanes Gallery, the authors and the artist British Library Cataloguing in Publication data available. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without first seeking the written permission of the copyright owners and of the publishers.

Contents

Foreword: Aoife Ruane, Curator/Director

With Bread: keeping company with Abigail O’Brien, Dr Medb Ruane

Bread and Alchemy, Theo Dorgan

Index of Images

Drogheda Municipal Art Collection

Artist’s Acknowledgements

Artist’s CV

Foreword Wherefore do ye spend money on that which is not bread?...

Abigail O’Brien was born in Dublin in 1957. She studied fine art as a mature student,

To the viewer, the images cannot be obviously linked with any particular bakery. Each

Eat that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness.

graduating in 1998 from the National College of Art and Design (NCAD), Dublin. Since

is named after an artist, a female artist, O’Brien says “because the image suggests

Bakery, Drogheda, through baker and managing director Patrick McCloskey. In a

then her work has earned numerous awards and accolades, and she has exhibited

something to me about their work”.

highly competitive and difficult market we are grateful for his belief in the project and its

-Isaiah 55:2

value. Thanks to Drogheda & District Chamber colleague and current, President Simon

consistently both in and outside Ireland over the last two decades. The second element is the bread sculptures - ethnic breads that have been put

McCormack who made the key initial introductions.

O’Brien’s work primarily foregrounds her identity as a woman. Belgian philosopher

through a process of firing and silvering, their nourishing and life-giving properties now

With Bread is an exhibition of photographs, sculpture/installation, and video by artist

Luce Irigaray has said that “one must assume the feminine role deliberately” (Jung,

suspended forever. Their titles refer to monetary currency - Peso, Euro, and Pound -

There are two outstanding essays in the catalogue from writer and psychoanalytic

Abigail O’Brien, her first solo museum exhibition and monograph in Ireland since 2009.

Irigaray, Individuation: Philosophy, Analytical Psychology, and the Question of the

and as objects of beauty O’Brien believes “they still have ‘currency’ …and may even

practitioner Dr Medb Ruane and poet, novelist and prose writer Theo Dorgan.

Feminine, 2008), in the struggle to find authentically female ways of speaking,

have ‘value’ in their metal properties”.

Sincere thanks to both writers for their time and creativity in the texts. Thanks also to journalist and writer Susan McKay for agreeing to open the exhibition.

The exhibition continues a strand of solo shows for Highlanes Gallery including Citizen:

dreaming and desiring that are free from male-centeredness. O’Brien’s practice

Anthony Haughey (2013); I am here; you are there: Kate Byrne (2013); Sarah Browne:

also explores culture and everyday rituals, encompassing life, death, love, birth and

The third and final element is a video projection titled Grande Dame, a three minute

Second Burial at Le Blanc (2012); Samuel Walsh: The Coercion of Substance (2012);

immortality.

piece capturing in slow motion a levain or sourdough starter at the moment of rising.

The team at Highlanes Gallery are central to the development, installation,

For O’Brien, this represents fecundity and fertility.

communication and engagement of, and with this exhibition. I would like to thank

Sinéad Ní Mhaonaigh (2011); Ten Miles Round: Jackie Nickerson (2010); Conflicting

Siobhan Burke, Patrick Casey, Ian Hart, Siobhan Murphy and Hilary Kelly, and

Account: Paul Seawright (2010); Shuffle: Richard Gorman (2010); and Eclipse of a

An artist I have long admired, I first became aware of O’Brien’s practice while working

Title: Diana Copperwhite (2008).

at the Irish Museum of Modern art, when The Last Supper (1995), one of her most

The exhibition has been conceived not only for Highlanes Gallery, but for two other

the team of invigilators and installation crew for their ongoing commitment and

important works was acquired to the Collection. When I began working at Highlanes

partner venues, The Dock in Carrick-on-Shannon, and Limerick City Gallery of Art,

enthusiasm. Primary school teacher Ann Burke has generously given of her time and

While bread and the craft of making it are nearly as old as civilisation itself, Pain au

Gallery in 2007, O’Brien had become resident in Co. Louth and accepted an invitation

both of which it will tour to in the coming eighteen months. We are grateful to curator/

advised on elements of our Primary School Programme and the school curriculum for

levain was the first leavened bread, probably discovered in Egypt six thousand years

to join the Board of the gallery, where she played a central role over a five year term.

director’s Siobhan O’Malley and Helen Carey and anticipate interesting exhibitions, as

this exhibition. Thanks also to Highlanes Gallery Board, in particular Chairman, Kevin

ago. Abigail O’Brien’s interest in bread, its elemental properties, the magical process

Her appointment as the first female Secretary of the RHA (Royal Hibernian Academy)

well as great discussion and engagement in their sites and with those who come to

McAllister and Alison Lyons for their steadfast and strategic support for the work of

that takes place in its making, its centrality in human daily life across race and culture

in 2012 signalled the end of her time on Highlanes’ Board.

the exhibition.

Highlanes Gallery.

However, a mutual friend, artist Amanda Coogan prompted a suggestion of a future

As well as ongoing funding from Drogheda Borough Council and the Arts Council,

Finally, there would be nothing without the work of the artist. Abigail O’Brien is one

collaboration and exhibition; Abigail had been already working on this and another

the project was awarded an Arts Council Touring Grant early in 2013, which has

of the most important visual artists working in Ireland today. The value of her work

The work for this exhibition has developed and continued out of an earlier exploration

body of work when I approached her to make an exhibition for Highanes Gallery…and

enabled the large format exhibition concept, the national tour, this catalogue, and

is immeasurable as is her ability to deliver to the highest standard even under the

Kitchen Pieces – Confession and Communion (1998), from the exhibition The Seven

she willingly agreed.

accompanying public programme. We acknowledge this critical and special

most challenging and difficult circumstances. Abigail is an inspiration; she is a true

financial commitment.

alchemist, and it’s been a pleasure working with her.

and religion, as well as its familial, social and cultural importance (historically through the female), and its rich symbolism, spans some twenty years.

Sacraments, a major body of work which was created by her over eight years (1995-2003).

With Bread includes three elements. The first is a series of framed photographs which have been taken in four bakeries in Ireland, McCloskey’s Bakery, Drogheda; Barron’s

In tandem with this extra funding, we have been fortuitous in securing significant

Bakery, Waterford; the Bretzel Bakery, and Il Valentino Bakery, both in Dublin.

sponsorship for all elements of the exhibition from McCloskey’s Traditional and Artisan Aoife Ruane, Director, Highlanes Galler

With Bread: keeping company with Abigail O’Brien Dr Medb Ruane How do you make air stand up? In Abigail O’Brien’s With Bread, you create objects

At base, it is about bread making as a ritual that crosses cultures, peoples and

The emphasis on lived experience gives the work a conceptual groundedness derived

The homage - femmage, perhaps - quits the slowly-eroding exceptionalist world of the

and images to track how air mutates in different circumstances. Drape it with yeast,

millennia. Lack of bread provokes hunger, famine, death. Too much enables cruelty

in parts from feminist art practice, with its early manifesto that the personal is the

capital -A artist - what Kiki Smith called ‘white, male, power, money’ - by honouring

flour and water and it becomes bread, the stuff we eat, share and make dreams of.

and greed. But bread is also about nourishing and loving, as it circulates from hand

political, and its quest to explore the everyday’s rich terrains. No truck is held with

forty-two female co-workers of various ethnic backgrounds, including the unstoppable

Clad it in silver and the ‘dough’ is worth a fortune. O’Brien’s forensic journeys into

to oven and from table to mouth and belly. “Love comes from the world of yum-yum”,

hierarchies or notions of greatness, individualism and exceptionalism. It’s not about

Grande Dame. This low-key act of commemoration mirrors the artist’s continuous

everyday things picture ordinary materials serving something momentous. Her practice

Lacan believed (Seminar XI: The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis,

bread; it’s about what you do with it.

references to friends and associates throughout her practice but also, pointedly,

details the minutiae and lived experience of what were once called sacred events. The

1964). Understood as food and as money, bread evokes notions of exchange and

immediately post-Christian context in which she operates could muddy the strategic

currency in human relationships and via the social justices/injustices flowing from

‘With’, the other key word in the exhibition’s title, suggests company (Latin: cum

aspects of her work but rather than being a religious investigation, her eye is on the

global markets. Less tangibly, it traces the body’s interventions on natural materials

panis), companionship, questions of relating and how to nourish them. This

So, wheat becomes dough, air stands up and, in parallel translations, is given the

symbolic moments religion - and art - have often tried to articulate.

and then metaphorises the magic of making air stand up into a discourse about art

relationality is not solely aesthetic, not about soft-focus aspirationalism or ‘big hug’

status of art, whatever that is, by transforming into photograph and sculpture. Shiny,

and transformation.

ethics. Stark global change ecologically and economically make urgent a suite of

beautiful objects cast from precious metals translate the artisans’ work into gorgeous

issues, from the place of the artisan and artist to issues of hoarding/distributing assets

artefacts that won’t rot or endure the messiness W.B. Yeats aimed to flee when,

Baptism (1995/6), her debut series, examined a child’s symbolic welcoming into

rejects the use of alibis by portraying people as agents, not as actors.

family and community with cut-glass precision - a miniature pram filled with salt

Grande Dame (2013) shows a yeasty dough bubbling round and overflowing a plain

and of nourishing those who are struggling with nothing and not-enough. Philosopher

yearning for eternity, he imagined a hammered gold bird cast by Grecian goldsmiths

spoke to people’s hopes and wishes, using ancient alchemical elements. The Seven

glass jar, telling a simple story of material alchemy but also showing what happens

Rosie Braidotti argues that the challenge is to promote affirmative politics which entail

who would sing forever because it was outside time (Sailing to Byzantium, The Tower,

Sacraments project (1995-2004) looked at such moments through the rituals and

when there’s no limit or point of no return. “Creativity expands without a brake”,

“…the creation of sustainable alternatives geared to the construction of social horizons

1928). Here, bread becomes a silvered bullion whispering, by the way, back to that

utensils associated with them, through people attending and food they prepared.

in mathematician Fernando Zalamea’s theory of change and decay as parallel

of hope” because they critique technological determinism at the level of representation

silver nitrate compound used in early photography. When childrens’ empty bellies

Sometimes her palette used trinkets, other times, such as from The Ophelia Room

orientations (Passages of Proteus, 2011), here synchronised through human eye

(Powers of Affirmation, 2011: 267).

don’t come first, this is a more desirable symbol of wealth than naked dough but

(2000), steel and aluminium surfaces glittered with cold beauty, in Dublin’s morgue.

and hand.

there’s a cost. The nutritive and relational are stripped away in a lethal contrast that O’Brien nails down these narratives of relationality and interconnectedness through

shows the high stakes between immortality and death. The global question of how to live together now returns with a vengeance.

The images’ sheer polish embodied a sense of the still life tradition with its

Photographs with intriguing titles play with tightly-contained images of dough that

a pattern of naming that stitches the discourse of art and transformation into a

uncompromising stress on perfection, here with a twist. The tradition’s impeccably-

weirdly seeps or stains, yielding surfaces livid and knotted as flesh, sometimes

discourse about women artists and symbolic recognition. While the work opens up

wrought, immaculate and unsullied order was a defence against mortality, against

looking amusingly erotic or downright repellent. The material squats. Human hands

conversations from art and artisanship to science and technology, the titles pinpoint

what Samuel Beckett called ‘unrelieved viciousness’ and the unpredictability that

knead it into vernacular forms from the artist’s experience. Here is Waterford blaa, a

the imaginative milieu in which it breathes. Most of the artists made their names

living and dying entails (Dante… Bruno. Vico.. Joyce’, Our Exagmination Round His

fluffy bread, here’s turnover with a big crust, there are bread rolls, pretzels, a friend’s

outside the Academy or so-called Great Tradition by positioning themselves as

Factification for Incamination of Work in Progress, 1929). In With Bread, however,

sourdough with his proving basket, French fougasse baked as a Christmas treat, and

nomads exploring film, video, photography, sound, performance, installation and

O’Brien unravels those stark oppositions of order/disorder, beauty/ugliness, value/

her mother’s brown bread, whose never-quite-the-same taste is part of the artist’s

architecture, much as O’Brien does.

worthlessness by working through a politics of process as profound continuity,

family traditions. Like Proust’s remembered madeleines, they function in deeply

visualised through creation, change and decay.

personal ways.

Dr Medb Ruane is a writer and psychoanalytic practitioner, based in Dublin. She has written as a columnist with The Sunday Times, The Irish Times, and The Irish Independent, and as a critic in many catalogues and journals. She serves on the Mental Health Tribunals. Her current research is on the pathways between psychoanalytic, literary and visual cultures. Her latest publication appears in Theory on the Edge: Irish Studies and the Politics of Sexual Difference, ed. Giffney and Sholdice (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013).

Bread and Alchemy Theo Dorgan What do we think of, nowadays, when we think of alchemy? In an age of information

but unnoticed, as the air is to humans and other mammals, as the sea is to fish. Yet

All that we say of alchemy, we can say of art. A number of elements in this exhibition

invited, in other words, to join in the alchemy of mind working with mind, attention

overload, accustomed as we are to requiring quick answers to all questions, most

consider, as Abigail invites us to do, the mystery of bread, how two ‘inert’ substances,

make the identification explicit: you can observe the weirdly impressive business of

working with attention in the boundless unfolding of human curiosity, the ceaseless

people would rattle off something along the lines of “proto-science, the transmutation

milled grain and water, transmute and transform when a third element, yeast, is

yeast working through dough in a series of photographs that arrest the process, that

working of our common imagination as we strive to understand this life of ours.

of base metals into gold” and be content that they had exhausted the subject.

introduced. Consider the role of the observant mind in this process, as in who it was

offer us a literal snapshot of a complex chemical interaction at work. You can observe

first noticed that a + b in the presence of c produces d. Consider how this process

the process captured as it occurs in the flow of time. You can claim time for yourself

The Sufis say that the presence of enlightened souls acts in a given society as a kind

The commodification of knowledge, resting as it does on the cursed proposition that

has been handed down, how it has varied and modified from one society to another,

to allow the rich metaphorical hinterland of the mystery grow in your own mind and in

of yeast. Enlightenment, its humble pursuit through work, is the proper business of

time is money, demands of us that we confront questions now so as, essentially, to

one epoch to the next, how what is discovered in one place is introduced, deliberately

your own attention.

the artist and an end result of art; it is also a gift that, like bread, acquires its deepest

dismiss them with all possible speed. There is an unvoiced but everywhere dominant

or by chance, into another place. Consider the artfulness of the baker, consider how

and truest meaning when it is shared. We are invited here to become alchemists of

belief that time spent in reflection, in patient inquiry, on the acquisition of knowledge

two people using the same ingredients, even the same mixing bowls and ovens, will

And you can consider what it might mean, when you see bread here transmuted,

beyond the immediate and superficial, is somehow time wasted, and that when we

produce two different breads. Consider the great gulf fixed between breads produced

transformed in the alchemical process of casting, into precious metal. In this latter

spend time on such matters, someone, somewhere, must suffer unforgivable

by the schooled human hand and the soulless, tasteless products of the machine

case you might find yourself thinking of Midas, of how all that he touched turned

financial loss.

bakeries. Consider the presence of bread in our art, philosophy and common speech

to gold — you may even catch your mind leaping, as mine did when I heard that

as a source of metaphor, as a guide to those leaps of imagination that drive us - and

story first as a child, to thoughts of how splendidly rich you would be if everything

Information, easily acquired, supersedes knowledge, not least because the acquisition

consider, too, the role bread and grain has played in our wars and in our politics, in

you touched turned to precious metal - before being brought up short by the simple

of knowledge requires study, the investment of attention and time. And, to invoke

the self-sufficiency of isolated homes and in the growth of villages, then towns and

realisation that you would, of course, very soon starve to death.

another cliché, we have become notoriously time-poor.

cities whose first nucleus, always and everywhere, is the bakery.

ourselves, to take our share of what alchemists have always and everywhere called, simply, ‘the great work’. Dublin 2013. Theo Dorgan is a poet, novelist and prose writer. He is a member of Aosdána.

As indeed, we would very soon starve to death if it were not for our bakers and our Part of the business of art in our time is to refuse this glib dismissiveness, this

Art, chemistry, tradition and innovation, talent and learning, all these and more are

artists. When Abigail offers the individual photographs in this exhibition as a gesture

knowingness that supersedes knowledge, and Abigail’s exhibition is, in large part, an

involved in the alchemy of bread. Alchemy is a tradition with an impressive lineage,

of homage to individual women artists she is making this connection plain, and yet

attempt to challenge this headlong flight into assumptions so devoid of content that

as rooted in philosophy as it is in the practical manipulation of the material world. It

at the same time elusive, tantalising, as metaphors and truths should be. You do not

they amount to no more than lazy dismissals.

rests on a single basic assumption, that all manifestations of what we might call the

need to know the work of, say, Dorothy Cross, Louise Bourgeois, Amanda Coogan,

life force are interwoven one with another, that this world in which we find ourselves

Tacita Dean or any of these other dedicatees in order to see what is in front of you,

She has chosen to concentrate her attention, and therefore ours if we agree, on the

is a plenum in which psyche, body and mind - and soul, if you are prepared to

nor yet to grasp the connection between bread dough observed and the work of one

simplest of alchemical processes, the intriguing transmutation of grain and water

countenance the term - are mutually interdependent.

of these artists - but you may be inspired to seek their work out, and perhaps even to

into the bread that for much of our history on the planet has been humanity’s single

revisit O’Brien’s work then, to see if you can imagine for yourself what it was in each

most sustaining food. Literally, the staff of life. Breadmaking is an art that has been

individual photograph that called to her mind the work of this artist or that. You are

practiced for millennia, an art that by virtue of its very pervasiveness has become all

Abigail Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Brien: With Bread 10

Index of images

Shirin Neshat

Grande Dame

Eva Hesse

Helen Chadwick

Lamdachrome Print

88 x 120 cm

Dorothea Lange

Kathy Prendergast

Cindy Sherman

Alice Maher

Lamdachrome Print

88 x 120 cm

front cover

pg 16

pg 13

pg 17

pg 14

pg 18

pg 15

pg 19

MĂŠret Oppenheim pg 20

Mary A. Kelly

Jenny Saville

Christine Borland

Marie-Jo Lafontaine

pg 23

pg 28

Paula Rego

pg 22

Kathe Kollwitz

pg 21 Lamdachrome Print

Marina Abramovic

pg 29

pg 30

pg 31

Lamdachrome Print

88 x 120 cm

Tracey Emin

Frida Kahlo

Judy Chicago

Louise Bourgeois

Sarah Lucas pg 32

Rebecca Horn

18 Pula

22 Lek

pg 27

Lamdachrome Print

88 x 120 cm

Lamdachrome Print 88 x 120 cm

pg 24

pg 25

pg 26

pg 33

pg 34

pg 35

3,000 Shekels

150 Balboa each

60 Dinar

240 Euro

Nan Goldin pg 44

Beverly Semmes

Maya Lin

Mona Hatoum

pg 39

Lamdachrome Print

88 x 120 cm

120 x 88 cm

7 Kopeck & 90 Santeem

300 Krone

Kara Walker

Siobhán Hapaska

Barbara Kruger pg 48

Amand Coogan

Tacita Dean

Rebecca Horn

pg 43

Lamdachrome Print

88 x 120 cm

120 x 88 cm

88 x 120 cm

pg 36

pg 40

pg 37

pg 41

pg 38

pg 42

pg 45

pg 49

pg 46

pg 50

pg 47

pg 51

Mary Kelly

Shadi Ghadirian

Grande Dame Moving Image

Rachel Whiteread

Camille Souter pg 61

Vivienne Roche

Janet Mullarney

pg 56

Lamdachrome Print

88 x 120 cm

pg 54-55 Video

Lamdachrome Print

88 x 120 cm

120 x 88 cm

Georgia O’Keeffe

Dorothy Cross

Kiki Smith

Alanna O’Kelly

Lamdachrome Print

88 x 120 cm

pg 52

pg 57

pg 53

pg 58

pg 59

88 x 120 cm

pg 62

pg 63

pg 60

Highlanes Gallery, Drogheda Municipal Art Collection

The Drogheda Municipal Art Gallery was founded by the late Bea Orpen, HRHA and

Benefactors

Highlanes Gallery

her husband CEF (Terry) Trench together with the Municipal Art Gallery and Museum

Anglo Printers

Committee in the mid-1940s. The collection dates from the middle of the eighteenth

Dónall Curtin

Curator/Director: Aoife Ruane; Operations and Security Manager: Patrick Casey;

Opened in 2006, Highlanes Gallery received funding from Drogheda Borough Council,

century and is housed at the gallery in former Franciscan Friary Church on Laurence

Drogheda Grammar School

Exhibitions and Installation Officer: Ian Hart; Accounts and Administration:

Louth County Council, and the project was part-funded by the European Union

Street, Drogheda.

Drogheda & District Chamber of Commerce

Siobhan Burke; Duty Officer/Reception: Siobhan Murphy; Duty Officer/Public

through the Interreg IIIA Programme managed for the Special EU Programmes Body

Sheelagh Duff

Programmes: Hilary Kelly; Housekeeping: Myroslava Bodgan

by East Border Region Interreg IIIA Partnership, the International Fund for Ireland, and

Artists represented in the Collection

Michael Flanagan, Rennicks Sign Manufacturing

Joan Mary Bloxam, Muriel Brandt, Rene Brault, Thomas Brezing, Elaine Byrne, Erica Il

Mary Fay

*Building Maintenance: Frank Curran *Gallery Invigilators: Gerry Kierans, Ursula

Cane, John Cassidy , Richard Caulfield, Simon Coleman, Helen Colvill, Sylvia Cooke-

Bernard Gogarty

McCloskey, Irene Nelson, Laura Gramzow, Joseph Flanagan, Andrew Brady

Collis, Diana Copperwhite, James Humbert Craig, John Crampton Walker, Gerard

Brian Hillen-Moore

Highlanes Gallery is supported by *FÁS Community Employment Project through

Highlanes Gallery and F.E. McWilliam Gallery & Studio, Banbridge in Co. Down were

Dillon, Kitty Elliott, Beatrice Elvery, Laurence Fagan, Pat Griffith, May Guinness, Brian

Niall & Valerie Lund

Millmount Cultural Development Services

developed together through the Intereg IIIA Programme, and continue to share

Hegarty, Letitia Hamilton, Jack P. Hanlon, Michael Healy, Grace Henry, Nathaniel

Lorcan Lyons & Associates, Architects

Hill, Charles Holroyd, Evie Hone, Mainie Jellett , John F. Kelly, Gereon Krebber, Dany

Peter Lyons

Board of Management

Lartigue, Marianne Lucy Le Poer Trench William, John Leech, L.S. Lowry, Thomas

Alison Lyons

Chairman: Kevin McAllister Board: Seán Cotter, Kieran Lawless, Alison Lyons, Joan

Markey, Clare Marsh, Ferenc Martyn, Pamela Matthews, Richard Moore, James

Kevin McAllister

Martin, Róisín McAuley, James McKevitt, Sarah O’Hagan, Fr. Ailbe Ó Murchú, Paul

McNeill Whistler, William Mulready, Sinéad Ní Mhaonaigh, Jackie Nickerson, Bea

Caroline McBride

Smyth, Brona O’Reilly

Orpen, Andrew O’Connor, Anderson Paisley, Mervyn Peake, Sarah Purser, Nano Reid,

Dr B. O’Connell

Gabriele Riccierdelli, Hilda Roberts, Henry Roper-Curzon, George William Russell,

Dr Conor O’Shea and Family

Board of Directors

Tasmin Snow, Mary Swanzy, Armelle Skatulski, Charles Tyrrell and Herbert Webb.

Scoil Bhríde N.S., Bóthar Brugha,Drogheda

Chairman: Joan Martin Board: Brian Harten, Kieran Lawless, Róisín McAuley, Joseph

Sacred Heart Secondary School, Drogheda

McGuinness, Brona O’Reilly

Patrons

Smyth & Son Solicitors

The Family of Bea Orpen and CEF (Terry) Trench, Founders of the Drogheda Municipal

Paul Smyth

Art Collection

Margaret Startup

Brendan and Bernadine McDonald

Patrick Walsh

Louth County Council – LED Task Force under EU Peace II Programme and partfinanced by The Irish Government under The National Development Plan.

exhibitions and resources.

Artist’s Acknowledgements I am very grateful to Fiona O’Reilly at On the Dot Design for her sensitive design of this Every project has to have a good leader and in this regard I would like to thank Aoife

Home baking is a wonderful skill and gift to those of us around you. Thank you to

Ruane, Curator and Director of Highlanes Gallery, for her vision, constant commitment

my mother Iris O’Brien for teaching me how, and to Elaine and Vincent Hartigan for

and untiring encouragement.

continuing the lessons.

To all the staff of Highlanes Gallery for your enthusiasm, especially Siobhan Burke,

A very warm embrace to Medb Ruane and Theo Dorgan for the great essays which

Siobhan Murphy, Patrick Casey and Hilary Kelly, and a special thank you to the

are insightful, thoughtful and most importantly very readable.

book. Also, many thanks to Lar Thompson for tweaking some of the sculpture images. Thank you to Don Hawthorn and the team at the specialist printers Nicholson & Bass for the care and time they have given this project.

technical team for your careful installation of the work, led by Ian Hart. Thank you to the Board of Highlanes Gallery especially Kevin McAllister and Alison Lyons for their stellar support. Warm thanks to Helen Carey at Limerick City Gallery of Art, and Siobhan O’Malley at The Dock. I am thrilled to be working with you both. Thank you to the bakers I went to visit in order to make my photographs. I had no idea what to expect and had great fun in the process. Barron’s is the oldest bakery in Ireland and Esther Barron and Joe Prendergast were hugely hospitable and dare I say it, warm as toast. I spent many engrossing evenings in the artisan bakery of Owen and Valentina Doorley at Grand Canal Quay, Dublin. Another landmark bakery is the Breztel in Portobello, Dublin and a special thank you to William Despard and all the bakers there for your time and support. Last but not least, I would like to thank Patrick McCloskey at McCloskey’s Traditional Artisan Bakery, Drogheda for not alone giving me access to his beautiful bakery but for his very generous sponsorship of the show.

The questions that arise during the making of the work are very important and sometimes more interesting than my answers. In this regard I would like to mention

A project like this has had the support and assistance of many people in order to be

Mary A. Kelly, David Galloway and Noel Kelly for your participation and for asking

realised. I am very grateful to everyone who took part in this process.

the questions.

A big thank you to Mark Paisley in Fire for the carefully produced prints, and to Ciara

Thanks to Richard Moore for connecting me to Fr Joe of St. Mary’s Parish Church,

Gallagher for extra assistance during the silly season.

who, together with Sacristan Frankie Taaffe facilitated access to the church bells, and

Mathew Peck at BLOC sourced the frames, and with Stephen Healy did a beautiful job, many thanks. Thank you also to Rico Slabozcs Horwath for your help moving the bread sculptures up and down to Dundalk. Not forgetting Sean Magennis for all his help with the props. In terms of the sculptures, thank you to Leo Higgins at CAST and to his super craftspeople, Emer Byrne and Ray Delaney. Michael Scott did the silver plating and I would like to thank him for his commitment and tireless efforts on my behalf. Thank you to Barry Lynch for your patient and careful edit of the Grande Dame video.

to Liam Denning for spraying the tables at short notice. Thank you to the PR team of Sinead Doherty and Gerry Lundberg for putting the word out. I am also very grateful to the Arts Council of Ireland for the additional financial support of the With Bread exhibition and national tour. A special thanks also to my family for making me laugh and reducing the stress. Larry gets a big mention here! My biggest thanks goes to Hugh Bradley, my Darling Man, for his unerring generosity and huge support throughout this process. His belief in my work is soul food. With Bread is for you.

Abigail O’Brien

2000

2011

2008

from The Ophelia Room - Extreme Unction Galerie Bugdahn und Kaimer, Düsseldorf, Germany

Summer Interval 08 Galerie Bugdahn und Kaimer, Düsseldorf, Germany

from Baptism Sculpture Court, Edinburgh College of Art, Edinburgh, Scotland

Apertures and Anxieties - artists celebrate 300 years of Trinity College School of Medicine, RHA, Royal Hibernian Academy, Gallagher Gallery, Dublin, 15 November -21 December

Solo Exhibitions

How to Butterfly a leg of Lamb a collaboration with Mary Kelly, Edinburgh Arts Festival

Christmas Show ArtCatto Gallery, Loule, Portugal, 10 December - January (2012)

2015 With Bread Limerick City Gallery of Art, spring

1999

Christmas Show Solomon Fine Art Gallery, Dublin, 1 December - January 2012

Obra Nabarmenenak /Obras Fundamentals Sala Kubo-Kutxa, San Sebastian, Spain, October 2007 - January 1008

2014 With Bread The Dock, Carrick-on-Shannon, 7 February – 5 April

Kitchen Pieces - Confession and Communion Galerie Stadtpark, Krems, Austria

2013 With Bread Highlanes Gallery, Drogheda, Co. Louth, 13 September - 16 November

How to Butterfly a Leg of Lamb, a collaboration with Mary Kelly, The Concourse, Dun Laoghaire Rathdown County Council, County Dublin

7:42, Irish Contemporary Art Lapua Museum of Art, Lapua Finland. Group exhibition with Mary Kelly, Seán Cotter and Thomas Brezing

2012 Air Fix Days Peppercanister Gallery, Dublin, October

1998

2011 Temperance RHA, Royal Hibernian Academy, Gallagher Gallery, Foyer, Dublin, January – April

Kitchen Pieces - Confession and Communion Galerie Bugdahn und Kaimer, Düsseldorf, Germany

www.abigailobrien.com

14.12.2011 - 26.2.2012 Christmas Group Show Solomon Fine Art Gallery, Dublin, November - December

RHA 178th Annual Exhibition, RHA, Royal Hibernian Academy, Gallagher Gallery, Dublin, February

2007 RHA 177th Annual Exhibition, RHA, Royal Hibernian Academy, Gallagher Gallery, Dublin Gestures of Infinity Kultutzentrum bei den Minoriten, Graz, Austria

Still Peppercanister Gallery, Dublin, September

2006

Cast 25 James Wray Gallery, Belfast, 1 - 26 July

Einfach So Galerie Bugdahn und Kaimer, Düsseldorf, Germany

2010 Temperance Galerie Bugdahn und Kaimer, Düsseldorf

1996

Cast 25 Solomon Gallery, Dublin, May

2009 Temperance 2009, Letterkenny Municipal Arts Centre, Co. Donegal

Baptism Old Museum Arts Centre, Belfast, Northern Ireland

RHA 176th Annual Exhibition (invited artist) RHA, Royal Hibernian Academy, Gallagher Gallery, Dublin

2008 Bella 2007 Galerie Bugdahn und Kaimer, Düsseldorf, Germany

Man Eating Cream Bun installation, Habitat, Dublin

Altered Images in association with the Irish Museum of Modern Art, IMMA, Letterkenny Regional Cultural Centre, Co. Donegal, 17 May - 15 June

2007 Bella Rubicon Gallery, Dublin

Baptism Häagen Dazs/Temple Bar Gallery (Solo Award) Dublin

181st RHA Annual Exhibition Ely Place, Dublin, 24 May - 30 July

Ten Years in the Making an Exhibition of Art from the State Buildings, 1995 - 2005, Farmleigh, Dublin

Three Colours / Red a collaboration with Mary Kelly, SOMA Contemporary, Waterford, April - May

National Self-Portrait Collection University of Limerick, Limerick

Altered Images Crawford Art gallery, Cork, 14 February - 29 April

2013

Art Rotterdam Holland, Netherlands

Children get choosy with IMMA Wexford Arts Centre 22 March - 9 April

2005

Garden Heaven - Holy Orders (2001 – 2003) Centre Culture Irlandais, Paris, France

RHA Annual Exhibition RHA, Royal Hibernian Academy, Gallagher Gallery, Dublin, May - August

2010

Happy Holiday Rubicon Gallery, Dublin

The Seven Sacraments (1995 – 2004) RHA, Royal Hibernian Academy, Gallagher Gallery, Dublin

Janus Peppercanister Gallery, Dublin, 17 January – 9 February

Summer Interval’10 Gallerie Bugdahn und Kaimer, Düsseldorf, Germany

Bread Matters West Cork Arts Centre, Skibbereen, Co. Cork

Altered Images Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, June - August

The Eye of The Storm IMMA Collection, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin

Sacred Dock Off-site, Enniskillen, Curator Linda Shevlin, June - July

2004

Let them Luv’ Cake Cake Contemporary, Dublin, March 2010

Tir na nÓg New works from the IMMA Collection, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin

Arts The Curragh Army Camp, Co. Kildare 2009 - 2010

Banquet Exhibition RHA, Royal Hibernian Academy, Gallagher Gallery, Dublin

2009 Altered Images County Museum, Clonmel, Co. Tipperary, in association with the

From a Collection - For a Collection Galerie Bugdahn und Kaimer, Düsseldorf, Germany

Irish Museum of Modern Art, IMMA, 19 June – 5 August

In the time of Shaking Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin

Another Island, Contemporary Irish Art The American Historical Society, New York, March

Art Brussels, Paris Photo. Fiac Paris, Art Cologne

2006 Confirmation- Martha’s Cloth 2004, Gallerie Bugdahn und Kaimer, Düsseldorf, Germany 2005 Fortitude John David Mooney Foundation, Chicago

Group Exhibitions

Vita Activa Rubicon Gallery, Dublin

Handicraft. Materials and Symbolism Museum Kunst der Westküste, Alkersum/Föhr, Germany, March

2004

2012

The Seven Sacraments (1995 – 2004) Haus der Kunst, Munich, Germany

7:42 The Cable Factory, Kaapelitehtaan Valssaamossa, Helsinki, 9 - 24 March

The Seven Sacraments (1995 – 2004) Kunstverein, Lingen, Germany

7:42 Highlanes Gallery, Drogheda, Co. Louth, Ireland May-September

2003 The Rag Tree Series Rubicon Gallery, Dublin

Ateliers und Kitchen, Laboratories of the Senses Martha Herford, Herford, Germany, May -September

The Rag Tree Series Galerie Bugdahn und Kaimer, Düsseldorf, Germany

RHA Annual Exhibition Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin, May – September

2001

Kinsale Arts Festival July

How to Butterfly a leg of Lamb a collaboration with Mary Kelly, Galerie Bugdahn und Kaimer, Düsseldorf, Germany

Pulse Contemporary Art Fair New York, USA

2003 Paris Photo Paris, France Child in Time The Gemeentemuseum, Helmond, Holland Art Cologne, Basil Art Forum

2002

1998

Random Access Video Training Symposium, Sculptors’ Society Ireland, 1998

Some Trees published by Paul Andriesse for the Douglas Hyde Gallery, Dublin 2004

Lerse Kunst uit de Collectie van het Museum Modern Art Te Dublin Stedelijk Museum, Belgium

EV+A 98 Limerick City Gallery of Art, Limerick

Arts Council of Ireland, Visual Arts Bursary, 1997/1998

Currents published by The Office Of Public Works, 2004

Art Forum, Berlin

Arts Council of Ireland, Materials Award, 1996

Career Development, Abigail O’Brien The Visual Arts Sheet, page16, issue 5, 2004

Stories Haus der Kunst, Munich, Germany

Novisimos, Cortometrajes Mexicanos, Recientes en Cine y Video Sala Luis Buñuel CCC/Centro Nacional de las Artes, Mexico, a collaboration with Javier de la Garza

Artists’ Work Programme (Residency), Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, 1996

Stories text by Stephanie Rosenthal and essays by Söke Dinkla, Christoph Hochhäusler, Thomas Jäger and Matias Martinez, pub. by Haus der Kunst, Munich, 2002

Passport Exchange; (Ex) Change National Polish Museum of Contemporary Art, Zacheta, Warsaw, Poland

Temple Bar Galleries and Häagen Dazs Solo Award,

Paris Photo, Basil Art Forum, and Art Cologne 2001 From the Poetic to the Political Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin “Zwischenraum # 4” Arbeiten mit Fotografie Galerie Bugdahn und Kaimer, Düsseldorf, Germany

N.C.A.D. Postgraduate Show Dublin City Gallery, The Hugh Lane, Dublin, June

Basil Art Forum, Art Cologne

Passport Exchange (Ex) Change, Temple Bar Gallery, Dublin

2000

Banquet Exhibition RHA, Royal Hibernian Academy, Gallagher Gallery, Dublin

Series Elke Dröscher Galerie, Hamburg, Germany

Figuration, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin

Art Cologne, Basil Art Forum

1996

Der Monokulare Blick Kunstverein Lingen, Lingen, Germany

Waiting Spaces Sheriff Street Post Office, site-specific work, Dublin

Zwischen – Raum Galerie Seitz und Partner, Wielandstr, Berlin, Germany

Oriel Mostyn Open Llandudno, Wales

Zwischenraum # Editionen und Multiples Galerie Bugdahn und Kaimer, Düsseldorf, Germany

Iontas Sligo, travelling to Dublin, Limerick and Derry

Unschärferelation Kunstverein Freiburg im Marienbad, Germany /Travelling, tour to Kunstmuseum Heidenheim and Stadtgalerie Saarbrücken

Awards

1997

NCEA National Student of the Year Award, N.C.A.D, 1995 Temple Bar Gallery & Studios, 1995

Collections National Self-Portrait Collection, University of Limerick, Ireland

Unshärferelation, Fotografie als Dimension der Malerie published by Hatje Cantz, text by Peter FitzGerald, Das Weltliche ins Sakrale, (p.21), 2000 Installation Programme 1999, published by Dunlaoire Rathdown, essay by Abigail O’Brien and Mary Kelly The Challenge of Power essay by Siun Hanrahan, published by Adapt, Limerick 1999

Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, Ireland

Lautlose Gegenwart, Das Stilleben in der Zeitgenossischen Fotografie Staatliche Kunsthalle

Office of Public Works, Ireland

Baden-Baden, catalogue essay by Dr Jessica Mueller 1999

University College Limerick, Ireland

Irish Art Now - From the Poetic to the Political essays by Declan McGonagle, Fintan O’Toole and Kim Levin, published by Independent Curators International, New York, in association with the Irish Museum of Modern Art, 1999

The Caldic Collection, Rotterdam, Denmark Museum of Modern Art, Vienna, Austria European Central Bank, Frankfurt, Germany Goldman Sachs, London, UK

MA Fine Art Degree Show 1998 National College of Art and Design, published by Dublin City Gallery, The Hugh Lane, text by Peter FitzGerald, Kitchen Pieces -Confession and Communion, (p.19), 1998

Private Collections, Europe and North America

Figuration, Works from the Collection of The Irish Museum of Modern Art text by Catherine Marshall, Curator of the Collection, 1997

Arts Bursary, Louth County Council (Create Louth) 2010

Selected Publications

Elected Full Member Royal Hibernian Academy, Ireland 2010

7:42, Irish Contemporary Art, published by Lapua Art Museum, 2011

Representing Women: An Interview with Kiki Smith by Abigail O’Brien, in Thought Lines, ed. by Sue McNab, published by National College of Art and Design, 1996

Culture Ireland Exhibition Bursary 2005 /2008

Text by Katherine Waugh, editors Kirsi-Maria Tuomisto and Esa Honkimaki

The Challenge of Power Limerick City Gallery, Limerick, November

The Solomon Sculpture Prize, 2008

Berlin Art Forum, Basil Art Forum

Public Art Award, Donegal County Council, 2007/2008

Creative Ireland - The Visual Arts, Contemporary Irish Arts, 2000 - 2011. Editors, Noel Kelly and Seán Kissane, published by Visual Artists Ireland

Perspective 99 Ormeau Baths Gallery, Belfast

Associate member of the Royal Hibernian Academy, Ireland, 2006

EV+A 99 Limerick City Gallery, Limerick

Culture Ireland Exhibition Bursary, 2005 Cultural Relations Committee of Ireland Award, 2003

Altered Images essay by Cliodhna Shaffrey, The Organisation of Hope, published by The Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin 2009

2013

Les Fleur du Mal Galerie Seitz von Werder, Wielandstr.34, Berlin, Germany

Arts Council of Ireland, Visual Arts Bursary, 2003

The IMMA Collection, editor Marguerite O’Molloy, published by The Irish Museum of

Project Studio, Temple Bar Gallery and Studios, 2001/2002

Board member IVARO

Modern Art, Dublin, 2005

Arts Council of Ireland/Aer Lingus Art Flight Award 2000 and 2001

Artist Notes, Some thoughts on The Seven Sacraments by Abigail O’Brien,

Arts Council of Ireland, Visual Arts Bursary, 2000

January 2005

Residency at the Tyrone Guthrie Centre at Annaghmakerrig, 1999

Abigail O’Brien, The Seven Sacraments and The Ritualised Daily Life essays by Stephanie Rosenthal, Ciaran Benson and Pater Friedhelm Mennekes, published by Haus der kunst and Steidl, 2004

1999 Irish Art Now: From the Poetic to the Political, 1999 - 2001 travelling U.S. exhibition, organised by I.C.I. New York and I.M.M.A. Dublin Silent Presence: Contemporary Still-Life Photography Staatliche Kunsthalle, BadenBaden and Bielefelder Kunstverein (2000)

Arts Council of Ireland, Touring Grant (With Bread, Highlanes Gallery on tour) 2013 -2015

EV+A Prize 1999

Temperance essays by David Galloway and John Cunningham, published by Letterkenny Cultural Centre, Letterkenny, Co Donegal

Baptism, Häagen Dazs/Temple Bar Gallery Solo Award catalogue, essay by Medb Ruane, 1996 EV+A 96, EV+A 98 and EV+A 99, catalogues

Positions Held Secretary of the Royal Hibernian Academy, RHA

Exhibition Details Highlanes Gallery Friday 13 September - Saturday 16 November, 2013 Laurence Street Drogheda Co. Louth W: www.highlanes.ie T: +353(0)41-9803311 F: +353(0)41-9803313 Curator/Director: Aoife Ruane Opening hours: Monday-Saturday 10.30am-5.00pm Closed: Sundays Open: October Bank Holiday Weekend, open Sunday 27 October, Monday 28 12.00-5.00pm

Irish Tour 2014-2015 The Dock Friday 7 February – Saturday 5 April 2014 St. George’s Street Carrick on Shannon Co. Leitrim W: www.thedock.ie T: +353(0)71-9650828 Curator/Director: Siobhan O’Malley Opening hours: Tuesday-Saturday 10.00am-6.00pm, Closed Mondays Limerick City Gallery of Art January 2015 Carnegie Building Pery Square Limerick W: www.gallery.limerick.ie T: +353(0)61-310633 F: +353(0)61 310228 Curator/Director: Helen Carey Opening hours: Monday-Tuesday-Wednesday-Friday 10.00am-5.30pm Thursday 10.00am-8.30pm, Saturday 10.00am-5pm, Sunday 12.00-5.00pm, Closed Bank & Public Holidays