Niamh O'Malley: Gather

3 Mar-30 Apr 2023

Overview

The second exhibition of the Irish Tour of Ireland at Venice takes place in Temple Bar Gallery + Studios, marking the 40th anniversary of TBG+S and the start of its 2023 Programme.

Niamh O’Malley’s Gather, which represented Ireland at La Biennale di Venezia is presented in an extended form including new sculptures and moving image. The artworks respond to the architecture of the gallery, its location in a city centre, and its close relationship to artists’ working environment in the studios above that 'cultivate and facilitate practices that necessitate a fashioning of forms, a thinking through making.' 1

This exhibition of new artwork is the first made by O’Malley since La Biennale in 2022. Over the past two years, the planning and production of both exhibitions have taken place in O’Malley’s TBG+S studio, and with craftspeople based in Ireland working with wood, stone and steel. O’Malley’s exhibition emphasises the links between making and exhibiting artwork, while drawing attention to the industrial architecture of the gallery, its central pillars of metal and concrete, and the large street-facing windows. O'Malley has also considered the city's textures and grounding surfaces; as Brian Dillon writes in the accompanying catalogue, her limestone ‘drains’ are 'conspicuously pitted with fossilised shellfish: a deep-time reminder that beneath the pavement lies the beach, the seabed, the geological memory of primordial ooze.' 2

For this spring exhibition there is a sense of the shifting daylight in artworks which present artificial, natural and imagined light sources – from a luminous and reflective advertising panel, to a moving image of the white sun on a cold winter morning. A new series of shaped-wood works take the form of typographic parentheses, holding the contents of the room within their brackets, and presenting the exhibition as a silent, but resonant, reference to something outside of itself.

The sculptures invite movement and communality, and draw attention to their place – and yours, in the room – whether it's high towards the rafters of the Arsenale in Venice; or placed in the light of The Model’s beautiful low-set windows in Sligo as part of the Irish Tour. O’Malley’s sculptures reawaken and are elaborated in this new context, conveying sensations of touch, and more – of grabbing, holding, and caressing surfaces, offering moments of tether and precarious poise.

Niamh O’Malley’s exhibition in Temple Bar Gallery + Studios Incorporates an inclusive and expansive programme of Learning + Public Engagement events including a talk between Niamh O’Malley and Ireland’s previous representative at La Biennale 2019, artist Eva Rothschild; as well as bespoke tours and workshops let by other artists and educators.

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1 Niamh O’Malley, 'The Space to Grow', The Visual Artists’ News Sheet, January– February 2023, Visual Artists Ireland, Dublin, 2023.

2 Brian Dillon, ‘Lustre', Niamh O’Malley, Gather. Temple Bar Gallery + Studios, Dublin, 2022.

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La Biennale di Venezia

The Venice Biennale is the longest established and leading international platform for the visual arts. Niamh O’Malley, one of Ireland’s leading artists, was selected to represent Ireland at this prestigious global event.

Irish Tour 2023

The Irish Tour of Ireland at Venice takes place in three venues throughout Ireland in Spring 2023. The exhibitions and events programme will present an expanded view of Niamh O'Malley's Gather exhibition, including existing works, new commissioned sculpture and moving image, and special guest speakers.

The Ireland at Venice Irish Tour is curated by the Temple Bar Gallery + Studios Curatorial Team. Temple Bar Gallery + Studios, Dublin, supports the development of artists and creation of art. The TBG+S Curatorial Team comprises Clíodhna Shaffrey, Director, and Michael Hill, Programme Curator.

Artists