Beyond What's Possible

beyond...what’s possible? exhibition

London Street Gallery

derry~londonderry 18 - 21 December 2013 • 7 - 18 January 2014

This exhibition marks the culmination of what has been an amazing year for the gallery with 14 exhibitions to date and over 9,000 visitors, including the President of Ireland and patron of the arts Michael D Higgins.

Beyond... What’s Possible? is a title chosen deliberately, to celebrate not only the work of 12 talented Artists, but also reflecting all that has been achieved by the gallery and the emerging and established artists who have exhibited in this special space this year. The building was gifted to the Culture Company by the Inner City Trust and opened its doors to the public on April 20th 2013. It has established itself as a significant gallery supporting the Visual Arts programme for 2013 and a much needed dedicated space supporting and showcasing the work of emerging and established artists at various locations across the city.

London Street Gallery looks

Beyond…What’s Possible?

Welcome to our final exhibition of 2013 at The London Street Gallery, opening its doors to the public on December 18th and running to January 18th. Aptly titled Beyond...What’s Possible? the exhibition celebrates the work of just some of the many talented artists who have been recipients of The City of Culture Individual Artists’ Award.

The Individual Artists’ Award was created in response to consultations with the city’s individual artists and challenged them to generate innovative and exciting artistic responses to the key themes of the year. Applicants were invited to put forward ideas for new work based on the themes of 2013 including ‘Joyous Celebration’, ‘Purposeful Inquiry’ and ‘Telling a New Story’.

The programme generated overwhelming interest amongst the artistic community, and grants ranging from £1,500 to £15,000 have now been offered to 50 artists for a wide variety of projects across a range of disciplines including sculpture, visual arts, music, film, photography, printing, quilting and dance. A total fund of £300,000 has been committed.

2 beyond...what’s possible

This exhibition looks beyond the constraints of 2013, beyond a building, a canvas, walls, or indeed a gallery, and beyond spaces inside or out. It reflects the ongoing desire and need to support and promote the significant pivotal role of arts and culture and specifically the role of the individual artist.

To date we have exhibited 1,093 artists including the work of children and young people. We are proud of the contribution we have made in supporting them and delighted to celebrate the imagination, ingenuity and diversity of artists whose work extends beyond a vast range of media, materials and processes.

opportunities for our Visual Arts Sector. Many of us look forward to contributing to supporting and informing key stakeholders in securing additional resources, spaces, studios and opportunities for our Visual Arts Community.

We hope that in 2014 we can continue to acknowledge the pivotal role artists and creatives play in the future of our city and communities. We need their creative spirit and talent.

We need to ensure their voices are heard. We hope we have made a difference with the public’s help, highlighting what can be done when we work together with talented, creative and passionate people.

I would like to offer my sincere thanks to all our exhibiting artists, our volunteers, to Londonderry Inner City Trust, Culture Company, North West Volunteer Centre, Derry City Council, WELB, ILEX, Public Health Agency, Creative Village Arts, The Gordon Gallery, CCA, The Playhouse, Voluntary Arts Ireland, Void, Cooper Cowley Gallery, Arts Council NI, our sponsors and partners and all who have enabled us to make this gallery a success. Together we have contributed to a growing community of artists and creatives and served a public who want to see, experience and enjoy a diverse range of arts and cultural opportunities. Our gallery may be closing but our journey is to be continued as we explore Beyond…

What’s Possible? beyond 2013.

Noelle McAlinden Director London Street Gallery Arts in Education Adviser Culture Company 2013

Participating artists include Maggie McKeever, Justine Scoltock, John McDaid, Tommy Long, Alison Lowry, Mary Kennedy, Aine Clarke, Denzil Browne, Deepa Mann-Kler, Bridgeen Gillespie, Nuala Herron and John Rainey.

Beyond… What’s Possible? is timely in celebrating the work of our Individual Artist Award recipients. The artists as always have not disappointed us and continue to scale great heights in celebrating and unlocking their own creativity and those they work with, pushing boundaries, inspiring and challenging audiences, and in some cases making the ordinary extraordinary.

As this year draws to a close we are hopeful that the commitment to the nurturing and celebration of local artists will continue as part of the city’s cultural legacy.

We are conscious there is huge interest in the future of the Visual Arts beyond 2013 and we want to ensure continuing

Beyond...What’s Possible? will open on Wednesday December 18th to 21st, reopening January 7th to 18th at The London Street Gallery. Opening hours 11am to 4.30pm.

For more information contact Noelle McAlinden at noelle.mcalinden@cityofculture2013.com www.cityofculture2013.com www.londonstreetgallery.org

aine clarke Aine Clarke has been a crafter in knitting and crocheting for the past 10 years and is the owner of Hansel & Gretel, a beautiful shop that produces and sells unique hand-knitwear in Pump Street. Aine also runs a series of popular crochet/knitting workshops in the city.

With the Individual Artist Award, she has created a ‘2013 Culture Quilt’ made up of thousands of squares, either crocheted or knitted to make a blanket. The Culture Quilt was created by people from across the city, from different social, economic and political backgrounds and symbolizes the diversity within Derry~Londonderry.

‘The craft of knitting/crocheting has currently seen a revival in popular culture. It’s no longer viewed as a pensioner’s pastime but is now actively engaging with the Arts and transcending the generations. The aim of the project was to teach as many people to knit or crochet in the city, and in return each person would make a square to contribute to the quilt.

The Culture Quilt was created by people from different social, economic and political backgrounds working together on a constructive project celebrating the diversity within the city.

The aspiration of the project was to engage the people of the city in a large scale art project which will symbolize all that is positive about the changes taking place over the City of Culture celebrations. Those involved in this project had the freedom of expression and direct involvement in the making of the Culture Quilt.’

aine clarke beyond...what’s possible 3

Denzil Browne Denzil works mainly with forgotten traditional techniques such as darkroom based black and white photography, constructing his own pinhole cameras and resurrecting historic processes such as cyanotype printing.

Previous projects have included: Photo Chemical Process. The cyanotype process has been around since 1842 and involves mixing chemical solutions from ferric compounds and contact printing a negative onto paper treated with the solution. The treated paper is then left to expose in sunlight which both develops and fixes the image – when correct exposure is reached the print is simply washed in plain water to remove unexposed chemical. The texture of the paper used then becomes an integral part of the print surface.

Abandoned Donegal was concerned with states of abandonment – Denzil favours the unpopulated image catching forever still the mark of man’s passing through his environment, his existence only confirmed by the evidence of his actions left in his wake.

Damaged Collateral is a series of images depicting the sense of alienation and paranoia infesting our city streets.

‘Old photographic processes hold more and more of a fascination for me as we move further into the digital age and become more used to seeing photographs on a screen rather than as a physical print - we are losing touch with the tactile nature of a print surface.

All of these labour intensive techniques allow the process involved to inform the aesthetic outcome of the final print, often the beauty of an object is born of the effort that went into creating it.’

denzil browne 4 beyond...what’s possible

Bridgeen Gillespie Bridgeen Gillespie is an illustrator, designer and textile artist from Derry~Londonderry. The City of Culture 2013 Fabric Collection celebrates the City of Culture through its architectural heritage.

Inspired by some of ‘the details you might otherwise miss’ the patterns spotlight the Walled City’s shared heritage and history, drawing on street names, details from the walls and buildings, public sculpture and more.

To create the Heritage Quilt for exhibition Bridgeen worked with two of the city’s internationally renowned quilt maker-educators, Mary Good and Sandra Montgomery, and invited local quilters to sew a block for the quilt. Over twenty local women participated from independent mixed community patchwork classes at St Peter’s Hall, Clooney Estate Community Centre, and the North West Quilters Guild.

‘The quilt pattern is a modern take on the ‘log cabin block’ in which traditionally the centre square is red, representing the hearth and home. It seemed fitting that each centre square in the Heritage Quilt bears an historic Derry City street name.

The fabric designs are created entirely digitally from Bridgeen’s own photos and drawings, and then printed via online fabric print specialists Spoonflower.com. The production of the quilt therefore represents an intergenerational collaboration of old and new skills, with traditional mature crafters working alongside a contemporary digital artist to showcase emerging design talent from Derry, as well as its rich history of textile crafts.’

The fabrics are available to order via: www.spoonflower. com/profiles/cherryandcinnamon. Find out more about the fabric collection and what inspired their designs here: www. cherryandcinnamon.com.

Bridgeen Gillespie beyond...what’s possible 5

Mary Kennedy Originally from Oklahoma, USA, Mary moved to the city in 2007.

While raising her family Mary worked as a professional seamstress, a computer graphic artist and illustrator, a social worker and a mental health therapist.

Although having sewn extensively from a young age, it was only after moving to Derry-Londonderry that she actually began learning the craft. Some of her work has been featured in magazines such as Irish Quilt and Craft and the international magazine She. Mary, who is also a respected painter, is art director for Second Line NI, a jazz music based cross-community programme that combines art and music with community activities.

‘These three doubled-sided 4’ x 5.5’ canvas panels are painted and sewn. Each panel features landmarks from various places in the city on both sides of the river with the Peace Bridge as viewed from either side. Silhouetted figures parade and dance in front of these representing no one side. These banners/murals are used in jazzbased second line parades featured in the City of Derry Jazz Festival that occurs each May. The hope of this piece is to allow people to participate in a musical and artistic venture that involves parading without any historical, sectarian or political context attached. When the piece is exhibited on its own, it is to be hung in such a manner as to be viewed from both sides, not flat against a wall. The holes in the face of the front silhouettes allow viewers to become participants, placing their faces in the opening. They can be viewed by others from the opposite side.

This not only represents looking at things from a new perspective but also becoming part of the event.

Every person can be a part of music and the arts and the changes that are occurring in the city. These pieces represent the efforts of blending cultures, viewpoints and traditions in such a way as to further breakdown polarized views, combining ‘us’ and ‘them’ into a collective ‘we’.’

Mary Kennedy 6 beyond...what’s possible

nuala herron With a background of life painting working mainly in oil paints, the figure has always been present in Nuala’s work. By initially often filming her subjects, she captures the in-between and figures caught in action. Cinema has a strong influence on her work and she attempts to freeze the moment and catch the subject unaware.

By creating a voyeuristic situation, Nuala draws the viewer into the scene, which is often within a domestic setting. The common themes which recur in her work are domesticity, voyeurism and dilapidation, and her work highlights the beauty and significance found in these seemingly abandoned spaces and captures the frailty and transience of beauty in ruin.

Many of the dilapidated and desolate scenes found in her work have evolved from photographs taken while travelling and are a manifestation of her understanding of reality.

‘During the year of City of Culture 2013 in Derry/Londonderry, I decided that I’d like to tell a story of local people through portrait painting. So I chose a variety of characters from three different generations, from both sides of the city, who I felt had contributed to the city in a meaningful way. I have exhibited internationally and been painting for a long time but have only had one other solo show in Derry in 2006.

The exhibition is made up of portraits of local people from the city. Some of the faces shown include a photographer, a singer/ songwriter, music producers, a writer, a doctor, an Olympic triathlete and a local craftsman. As a painter, it helped that these people had great faces, such as Dermie McClenaghan, one of the many people in the city with a passion for civil rights and among those at the forefront of the local civil rights movement.

I chose to exhibit my work in the main gallery space of The Playhouse, to make the work as accessible as possible. The Playhouse has many visitors from far and wide attending all the events, so I felt that this was an appropriate place to gain a wider audience.’

nuala herron beyond...what’s possible 7

tommy long Tommy’s paintings capture local figures set against a backdrop of gritty urban landscapes, and the large scale canvases use collage to represent the artist’s most vivid childhood experiences.

The paintings are based on thousands of photos he has compiled over a period of eight years of the working class area in Derry where he grew up. The urban environment and the people who dwell there also have a major influence on his work.

‘The paintings and prints are based on memories of my own childhood, and youth. The people I like to paint are ‘my people’. When I find a character I want to paint I create a dreamlike fragmented environment for them to dwell in, and the background will usually be a collage of up to 20 different images. The painting of the fire for example is based on photographs I took one night while I was working in a local shop in Creggan. I looked out the window and could see a few of the local kids sitting round a fire in the middle of the night. Observing the scene I noticed that the colours were amazing – with the black silhouettes of the building set against a dark blue sky and the orange flames reflected on their faces.

I tend to use universal images of birds and fire in my current work to represent the freedom so resonant in childhood. The painting of the little girl is about the dignity and strength that is present in every child but often unnoticed. The background is gritty and will take people back to their own past I hope.

Varying themes in my work convey the different essences each of these individuals offers, from signs of greatness, hope and dignity that are found in the eyes of a child, to the more poignant alienation of youth and their detachment from society. I believe that by only painting themes that I myself have experienced and therefore understand, I bring a sense of realism beyond a likeness. I am inspired to create by the people I meet; I want to depict them and their position in society.’

tommy long 8 beyond...what’s possible

Alison Lowry After graduating from the University of Ulster with a first class honours degree in Art and Design in 2009, Alison Lowry has gone on to win numerous awards for her work. Accolades include first place in the category ‘Glass Art’ at the Royal Dublin Show, a Silver medal at the Royal Ulster Arts Club’s Annual Exhibition and the Warm Glass Prize.

Alison exhibits both locally and internationally and her work is held in several public collections. The Arts Council of Northern Ireland has recently made a second purchase for their collection. Inspired by her interest in objects and antique Irish textiles, she employs a range of techniques to create her sculptures, working with cast glass and pate de verre.

‘This installation piece was inspired by the Derry shirt quilts which are housed in the archives at the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum.

These rare quilts offer us an insight into the domestic lives of the women who worked in the Derry shirt factories. The hand stitched quilts were produced from the scraps and off cuts from the factories which the workers were allowed to purchase and take home. The quilts were utilitarian and quite thin - no wadding was used - and often many were layered up on the bed to provide warmth.

The Derry shirt quilts contextualise the time period when shirts were being produced in Derry and give us an insight into the domestic environments of the factory workers. As so often with handmade textiles, the quilts also tell a very personal story of a single woman’s life experiences. I hope the glass quilt acts as a reminder of period in time that is now past, but still hangs in our collective psyche.’

alison lowry beyond...what’s possible 9

Deepa Mann-Kler Deepa’s art is an attempt to belong, using her life experiences as inspiration for works ranging from painting, drawing, photographic and neon installations. Deepa reveals her fears, love, hopes and joy in brutally honest work and always in a way that tries to find a connection with the individual at the humane level, where the personal becomes political.

Her interest in the work of Heike Liss, Ai Weiwei and Tracey Emin particularly inform Deepa’s paintings, photography and installations, which explore complex personal and familial states and ideas of group and self-identity through expressionist styles and political themes. She has exhibited internationally, including solo and group exhibitions in Ireland, America, Germany and China. In 2011 she was made artist in residence with the Belfast playwright Martin Lynch. Perceptions has been selected for the Migrant Artists On Ireland Series 2013 by the Centre for Creative Practices in Dublin.

In 2013 she won Brilliant for her neon installation Dogs, which formed part of the Lumiere Festival run by Artichoke and commissioned

by Derry~Londonderry UK City of Culture. Mann-Kler also created Teenage Kicks for the BT Building in Derry as part of the Lumiere Festival.

Deepa Mann-Kler 10 beyond...what’s possible

john McDaid John has worked as a multi-disciplinary designer for 14 years, creating work within the arts and community sectors.

In 2010, he set up his own practice, STILL, producing work focused on telling stories with clarity and integrity. Much of this work has been photographed, including the Sharing the Learning project, a flagship exhibition for Donegal County Council which explored how Peace III funded work impacted communities on the ground across the county.

As well as a printed book and online archive, there is a permanent exhibition of this project in Letterkenny Regional Cultural Centre.

Working on recording the experience and memory of people in film, John produced video and short films for a number of groups in the North West and in his role as creative director of Dog Ears, a children’s media company, John has been keen to explore our common experience of stories in childhood. This has been the basis for the First Words project, which also hopes to provide an insight into the formative childhood stories of the writers, authors and artists the region has produced, alongside those of everyday people.

‘Everyone had a book or story they loved to hear as children. First Words is a look at how people remember these stories, recording people’s experience of stories and books as children, and how these formative experiences have stayed with them.

The intention of the project is that these memories provide an insight into a universality of experience as children, no matter what our walk of life as adults, and become a small tribute to the importance of books and stories in childhood.’

john Mcdaid beyond...what’s possible 11

Maggie McKeever Maggie McKeever is an artist, curator and arts manager. She graduated from the National College of Arts & Design, Dublin in 2009 with a BFA in Painting. Recent exhibitions include her solo show, Phantasmagoria, Void Community Art Space, 2011. Group exhibitions include Michael Rosenthal Gallery, Arc Gallery and Meridian Gallery, San Francisco, 2010/2011.

What is fascinating about them is that when they are displaced into the hands of another they open up to new interpretations. Maggie’s personal artistic technique often uses layers to rebuild the image, creating a hybrid image that allows for alternate readings.

With the Individual Artist Grant Maggie has created a new body of work with Derry~Londonderry as the focal point. The main source material is a mixture of the city’s archival photographs, publications, family photographs and stories over the past 100 years along with her own artistic influences.

Her paintings often appear transitory in nature, which complements the changes in the community, representing the city’s duality and its unique persona. Narrative features strongly in the work, and viewers are invited to interpret the story for themselves.

‘Archival photographs intrigue me; the meaning they hold and stories they tell. My painting practice is influenced by the original archival images, but allows for other sources and the materiality of the paint to change and influence the work.

BT Portrait of a City have given me access to the photographic archives, films, memories and stories of Derry over the past one hundred years. The original imagery will be reconstructed and combined with new elements to tell a new tale, which I feel is very representative of Derry’s journey to becoming the City of Culture.’

maggie McKeever 12 beyond...what’s possible

john Rainey John trained at the Royal College of Art (2010-2012) and Manchester Metropolitan University (2006-2009) and his work has been exhibited in the 2009 British Ceramics Biennial, Stoke-on-Trent, The Salone Internazionale del Mobile, Milan, and his first solo exhibition was held in 2013 at Marsden Woo Gallery, London.

In May 2013 John received one of eleven selected Project Space exhibitors at COLLECT 2013, an annual event held at the Saatchi Gallery, London.

Through an integration of traditional material processes, with additive manufacture technologies, he repeatedly refers to the aesthetics of synthetics, the compromising of definition, the instability of scale, the virtual transmission of experience and existence, and the secondary nature of their reception.

‘Image Topographies… is a series of 3D printed sculptural landscapes based on interactions with a city steeped in imagery. One of Derry~Londonderry’s most distinct and notable attributes is the extent to which the city has been photographically recorded over the past 45 years. This series of image topographies examines the changing nature of how, and through what sources, we most often encounter this wealth of imagery, working with two photographic anthology publications, and subsequently the City of Culture 2013 photograph archives available through Facebook.

The final sculptural structures explore the messages delivered to the viewer of these collections, who may be forming their ideas of Derry/Londonderry without direct experience of the place itself. Each of the different sources will tell a contrasting story of the same place, and here we see the transformative power of the editing process, involving both inclusion and exclusion, the tone and the contextualization of images held within a collection, and how these may direct our comprehension of events and periods in history.’

john rainey beyond...what’s possible 13

Justine Scoltock As an artist and filmmaker Justine is interested in identity and to what extent it is defined by gender, sexuality, religion and surroundings, issues that are at the very centre of how we see ourselves as a society.

Justine graduated with a first class honours degree in Fine Art in 1996 from Aberdeen, and for the past 13 years she has worked in the Nerve Centre as a graphic designer and video editor. She has edited, amongst other things, Voices the short video which accompanied the winning City of Culture bid, the recent City of Culture animation, and Motorman, recently broadcast on UTV, which combined her interest in archive footage and photography, and local history.

She directed the film, Pride In Our City, published as part of the Sharing Stories project, and shown in the Regional Culture Centre in Letterkenny and in the Nerve Centre as part of the Foyle Film Festival’s Intercultural and Anti-Racism programme. The film takes the Foyle Pride parade as its starting point and explores some of the complex reactions to it locally. It examines the impact of the parade, the reasons for holding it, its place within Derry/Londonderry’s history of civil rights campaigning and the ongoing issue of homophobia in the North West.

Justine is an accomplished painter and printmaker and produces both representational and abstract pieces, and as well as producing her own work Justine has also worked alongside artists Willie Doherty and Locky Morris.

‘I am exhibiting two pieces - one, an aesthetic re-imagining of an iconic part of our city and one an interactive video installation. The video consists of interviews conducted with people in and from Derry~Londonderry with something in common, chronicling many aspects of their lives, history and relationship with the city. The audience will be invited to control the delivery and structure of the piece by using motion sensor technology to form a unique and non linear story.’

justine scoltock 14 beyond...what’s possible

London Street Gallery 5 London Street, Derry~Londonderry T: 028 7126 0051 E: londonstreetgallery@gmail.com W: www.londonstreetgallery.org