The Visual Artists’ News Sheet
September – October 2015
33
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Work by Jane Fogarty at Talbot Gallery & Studios
Incubator Residency series I, Claire McCluskey and Isadora Epstein
Doing & Not Doing Elaine grainger reflects on 10 years of directing and curating talbot gallery & studios, dublin. 10 years is a long time to be doing anything, but it’s also a long time to be not doing something. In 2005, I opened the Talbot Gallery & Studios in Dublin 1 and around the same time I stopped painting. It wasn’t just because of the gallery: I also had a four year old, Isabelle, and a newborn baby, Tate. I would have another child, Conor, four years later. When the gallery’s 10-year anniversary began to approach, people asked me if I’d go back to painting. Initially I said no, but it’s not easy to let go of an idea like that. I thought, maybe it was the ideal time, but then I also knew what hard work it was. I was talking about it a lot – procrastinating – when Felicity Clear said to me, “you’ve just got to go and do it”. I love painting, but in a lot of ways it’s easier to run a gallery. Painting requires discipline, which isn’t to say running a gallery doesn’t, but there’s a momentum that comes out of working with other people, whether it’s the artists you encounter and decide to show, the interns that work with you or the buyers, writers and consumers that pass through your door on a daily basis. Pretty early on, I realised that the gallery’s focus was going to be on showing recent graduates, artists that were just starting out. There were two reasons for this: the first was that my husband owned the property that the gallery was located in, which is the first floor of a Georgian building on the corner of Talbot Street and Amiens Street. We were also able to rent rooms above the gallery as studio space for reasonable rates. It gave me the luxury of not having a commercial imperative. The second reason was tied up in the roots of the gallery. After I had Isabelle, and before I had Tate, I had another baby, Ewan. When he was three months old he died of cot death. It turned our world upside down. I think I was so lucky that Alan, my husband, said, “just go and paint”, which I did. I went upstairs, used one of the rooms at the top of this beautiful building and started painting. It was like starting from the beginning; I was working it through as I went along. I also knew that it would be good to work towards something, but I was afraid: I didn’t want to go to galleries and say “I have a body of work”. A friend of mine, artist Rhona Byrne, suggested that I show the work myself and use the large space on the first floor of the building. So I decided to set myself a November deadline. I was painting and I was crying and I was sick (I was pregnant with Tate) but it was the most amazing time and I don’t think I’ll ever paint like that again. I pulled it together and had this exhibition. All of the work sold and people spoke about how wonderful the
Garden at StArt Studios, Mohill, Co. Leitrim
space was. I had Tate the following January and decided I’d use the money from the exhibition and set up some studios and a gallery. I suppose I was slightly naïve in focusing on showing new artists, but a lot of people had been very generous to me with their time and energy. I really felt that I wanted to do it, to be generous with my time and energy, and that new artists were the ones who needed this support the most. I had a plan, but in the early days I didn’t always have the confidence to follow it through. In 2007 I attended the NCAD graduate show and saw the work of Genieve Figgis, amongst others. Genieve paints mischevious and macabre portraits. Portraiture is a hard sell, and these weren’t very beautiful by any means, but I was really drawn to them. In those days, however, I found that I didn’t trust my instincts. A couple of years later, the gallery became more focused in its mission. With the crucial help of interns, I began the Most Promising Graduate Award in 2010. This provided the winner with a solo show at the gallery, but also a year’s free studio space. Because I’m working with artists so early in their career, I don’t try and tie them to the gallery. My position is that I have to let them go off and do their own thing. I have to consider how much more I can offer them. If they stayed with me and showed every second year, I don’t know if that would be sufficient for their needs and I don’t think it would be good for the artist at that stage of their career. I also don’t think that’s what the gallery is about. In 2013, I held an open submission. Genieve Figgis had just completed her masters and applied. I said yes immediately. Her show
‘One Year One Day’ graduate shortist group show installation
was reviewed by Cristín Leach Hughes in the Sunday Times. I can’t take any credit for what she has done, but there was something about the timing of that show, not just for her, but for me as well. There was a point when it was sitting in the gallery and I said to myself: I’ve come this far. I am now sure of who I am and what I want to say. That same year Ireland had the European Presidency and the Office of Public Works put together a show of Irish art which toured to Spain, Italy and Poland. ‘40/40/40’ was an exhibition of work by 40 Irish artists under 40 to mark Ireland’s 40 years in the EU. A quarter of those young artists had shown in my gallery. Seeing the Talbot Gallery listed at the top of many artists’ CVs is satisfying. When it came to assessing the gallery’s position after 10 years, it was clear that the anniversary had to be marked, but how would we do it? A conventional retrospective simply wouldn’t have worked. Instead I decided to open the space up to new experiences for the year. I began a series of Incubator Residencies: for a period of eight weeks, artists would have the gallery as a platform to research, develop and present new work. It began with Claire McCluskey and Isadora Epstein. They led the way and it was exciting watching them working within the space. I was very open and free: they could do whatever they wanted; they didn’t have to have an exhibition, but in the end they decided to have a closing event and it worked. At the end of the day, it was exploratory work so the closing night was a nod to the work that had taken place and the potential work that can come from what they created and what they learnt from each other. For the second in the series, I asked Brendan Fox of Foundation15 to help me choose the artists. Joe Scullion and Sinéad Onóra Kennedy were awarded the residency and their work will be shown beside 10 pieces of work from IMMA at Foundation15 in September. This year has brought more collaboration with the creation of the Monto Arts Community, which is named after the part of Dublin that the Talbot is located in. Once the red light district of Dublin, the irony wasn’t lost on us that all of the galleries and studios within the area – ArtBox, The LAB Gallery, Oonagh Young Gallery, Fire Station Artists’ Studios and the Talbot – are all run by women. We are now sharing our resources in getting the message out that we are here and our work should be seen. Meanwhile, I’m back in the studio. The work in my head has changed massively since I last took up the brush. I’ve consumed so much art over the past decade and I’ve learnt so much, but I suppose you can only go so far with that. At some point, you have to form your own self and style and decide what you actually want to say as an artist. This key point also applies to my role as a gallerist. Elaine Grainger, Director / Curator, Talbot Gallery and Studios. talbotgallery.com