Organico Bantry

Exhibition Showing in Organico Cafe, 3ed to 27th June

Opening Thursday 5th June 6.30pm , Organico Cafe

Alison Trim is a local artist, living in Bantry for the past 13 years. She is best known for her work with children and young people through her role as Schools and Youth Coordinator for West Cork Arts Centre in Skibbereen. She is currently studying in the third year of the BA in Visual Art course with Dublin Institute of Technology on Sherkin Island. She has previously exhibited in group shows with West Cork Arts Centre, The Courtyard Gallery, Middleton, Talbot 101, Dublin and was shortlisted for the Markowicz medal award at United Arts Club, Dublin in 2005.

Scorch and Surge.
These two canvases explore two of the biggest fears that climate change confronts us with, flooding, or desertification. The images combine layers of information based on many different sources of information about weather, tides, migration patterns, including maps, charts, and photographs. The more we seek to understand the way our planets systems work the more complex it becomes, and when it comes down to it, all most of us really understand is whether we feel wet, or dry, hot or cold. Weather is natural, beautiful, complex, dangerous, known and unknown, a wealth of contradiction.

Stones
“A thing is a hole in a thing it is not” Carl Andre This work is inspired by a collection of stones the artist gathered during walks on Snave Beach, Coomhola, over the past ten years. “There is a mystery to me about these stones that suggests a breaching of boundaries. Stone is a solid material, in fact emblematic of solidity, and yet something has passed through leaving a hole through the core of its solidity. It almost feels as if we should be able to see the stones insides, or that it has been violated, and yet the shape of the stone itself feels very contained, as does the negative shape of the hole. Alongside the documentation of these stones my painting work had become very much to do with, surface, and layers, and the notion of ‘containment’ has recurred in my practice for some time now. This painting brings these two strands of my practice together, using the shapes of the stones with a surface which feels almost permeable, like skin, or almost ready to burst like ripe fruit.”

Organico Cafe is delighted to welcome a new exhibition of illustrations from a children’s book called ‘Into The Serpent’s Jaws’ by Spark Deeley.

Spark Deeley was born in Birmingham in 1961. She studied in Cardiff, South Wales, graduating with an honours degree in Fine Art. After much travelling, she is now settled in Cork, Ireland, and divides her time between illustration, fine art, mural art and community art projects.

Her career has been a broad one. She has held one woman shows, taken part in a number of selected group shows, established a community print training centre, as well as instigating and contributing to a variety of artistic projects throughout Ireland, the U.K., Spain and the U.S.A.

‘Into The Serpents Jaws’ is Spark Deeley’s first illustrated book for older children and adults. Part fable, part art book, it symbolically tells the story of a woman who has the courage to embrace her fears, allowing them to become her allies. As the woman crawls with trepidation through a glowering jungle, she meets the face of her own fear in the guise of a serpent and a jaguar. Her fear becomes reality when the serpent consumes her, beginning a journey of transformation within the protection of its jewelled skin.

Richly illustrated with exquisite ink paintings throughout, the images perfectly compliment the theme by slowly transitioning from black and white into full colour.

An unusual book full of mystery and depth, which speaks to all ages of our potential to grow stronger through challenging times.

‘Into the Serpent’s Jaws’ was launched at Tigh Fili, Cork Arts Theatre, Carroll’s Quay, Cork,
on Friday 9th November 2007.

The book, as well as prints of the art works, will be available to buy in Organico Cafe from the 10th of May.

To find out more about Spark Deeley’s work, visit her website: www.sparkdeeley.com