The Fox and Chicken Dream by Toma McCullim
Organico Cafe is delighted to be exhibiting works by works by Toma McCullim and Astrid and Kirstin Walshe. Colourful, charming and upbeat this exhibition will appeal to all ages. Call in and view anytime before the end of April 2011.
Toma McCullim:
Toma holds a first-class honours degree in The History, Archaeology
and Anthropology of Art from the prestigious Sainsbury School of World
Art at the University of East Anglia. She has been selected as an
Invited Artist at this years Summer exhibition of the Royal Hibernian
Academy.
These new paintings are from a series called “My Little Eye”.
“In this series of paintings I wanted to include the child as well as
the adult viewer, to allow for a play of perspectives and meanings
within the work. It’s important to me that all members and ages of a
family can enjoy these paintings over the span of a lifetime and
more.”
Originally from Glasgow , Toma has lived in West Cork since 1992.
Astrid Walsh was born in Germany in 1976 but grew up in Ireland. She initially studied Sociology and German in Trinity College, Dublin. This was followed by a period working in Social Research and also with people with disabilities. Her work is led by her attemps to understand the workings of this world, a world which Michael Palin accurately described as ‘an absurd place doing lots of silly things’. Things did not become clearer by doing a degree in Fine Art in IADT, Dun Laoghaire some years later. Her practice is diverse and includes painting, drawing, illustration and video installation.
Kerstin Walsh – Statement
Imagine that each person has a question. One which comes up often in
their lives, which is like a distillation of the inquiry which guides
their life and their choices. If you had a question. What would it
be?
Mine, a two-headed question, is ‘Am I happy/ Are you happy?’ This
question has lead me down a certain path. When I was a child I used
to call my father, a Psychologist, ‘a doctor for crying and moaning’.
In pursuit of knowledge about happiness I naturally began to learn
about it’s opposite, studying Psychology, Sociology and English,
followed by more practical Social Policy and Social Work, then
Healing, looking for an answer to ‘crying and moaning’.
Working hard at the question, ‘Are you happy, and if not, what can I
do about it?’, I also started asking myself, ‘What makes me happy?’.
If we have one life, and this is it, what do I want to do? So I came
back to beauty. Beauty makes me happy. Imagination, creativity,
painting and drawing things I like to see, people, flowers, apples,
things! Sadness too.
At the moment I am using acrylics mostly and pencil and oil pastels
and coloured pencils and charcoal on paper. I like paper because I
can lean on it and I love the lines that you can make with pencils. I
like to play with balance. If somthing is too pretty or too balanced
I put something in which will make the image less easy, more real.
