Event Details
Dates
28/01/2010 – 28/01/2010
Galway Arts Centre
January 28 – February 6, 2010
Official Opening January 30 at 2pm Gallery 3
The Galway Arts Centre presents, Go bhFeicfidh Tú Dán Ó Direáin [So you may see a poem – Ó Direáin], in conjunction with the Cumann Merriman. Opening January 27 the exhibition shall run until February 6, 2010. This series of specially-commissioned intimate drawings by Aran artist, Seán Ó Flaithearta, is a contemporary response to the lifetime work of fellow Inis Mór artist, poet Máirtín Ó Direáin (1910-1988). The images were commissioned for inclusion in Na Dánta, the new collected poems of Máirtín Ó Direáin, published by Cló Iar-Chonnacht as part of the centenary celebration of the birth of the poet.
Go bhFeicfidh Tú Dán – Ó Direáin is a body of fifty mixed media works on paper in which the thoughts and perceptions of the two artists meet, and where the poems act as a window onto themes of another time, from where meanings have since shifted. The visual work is a quest to find a language that complements the words written a generation earlier, and that connects past and present through the creative expression of both artists. There is constant dialogue between different dimensions in the work in an effort to bring word and image together.
Responding to the oeuvre of Máirtín Ó Direáin, using the artworks to portray the poems in a modern setting, and providing a context for the multiple layers of Ó Direáin work and artistic identity, Ó Flaithearta, in this personal exhibition, accompanies the poet on well-travelled paths. Some pieces are inspired by a word or phrase in a poem, or a person or place on the island encountered by the poet, others by the relationship with nature in Ó Direáin’s poetry. It is a journey to go beneath the surface of the landscape and reality where there are underlying worlds of story significance meanings.
A native of the Aran Islands, Ó Flaitheata was the first artist in residence at Áras Éanna in Inis Oírr. He has exhibited nationally and internationally, representing Ireland at events such as the Lorient International Celtic Festival in Brittany (2009). Ó Flaithearta is also involved as designer and director in contemporary Irish language theatre.
