Memories are the treasures that we keep locked deep within the storehouse of our souls, to keep our hearts warm when we are lonely.

Yet another review...

This review is of the exhibition Deep Fried Ephemera by musician Jim White in the Douglas Hyde Gallery.

I was very unsure about the meaning of the word Ephemera so i looked it up and it means some piece of written or translated word that was not meant to be retained or preserved. This i found very interesting as the majority of the boards contained many pieces of that persons history and how they all might have possibly been from just the one day. This thought i found curious and intriguing.

I have to say i was really fascinated by this collection. It was exhibited in a small room containing bulletin boards covered with images and also books from peoples past. On the Douglas Hyde gallery website it is stated that the artist "chose to put together a selection of curious and engaging oddities" I can really relate to the word curious as the collection was indeed very curious.

Each of the bulletin boards included photos, sometimes illustrations and notes written to friends or loved ones, written maybe by the owner of the items on the board. Although the collection was indeed curious the explanation was very interesting. It stated that the exhibition was collection of peoples memories and nostalgia. All the bulletin boards were from different eras and many people from different generations can relate to the images and notes that were attached to these boards. I think each of these boards oozed nostalgia and melancholy, that belonged to that particular person and it gave an impression of that persons life that i found very alluring. This was one of my favourite exhibitions lately and i would highly recommend it.

History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again.

Image: Installation 'Goran’s Stealth Yugo' 2009 Imma (taken by myself)

This is another review of an exhibition currently being displayed in IMMA. This collection belongs to Irish artist Alan Phelan and is entitled Fragile Absolutes. The title was inspired by the

Slavoj Žižek book The Fragile Absolute – or, why is the Christian legacy worth fighting for?

Taking the italicised words from this book and he uses them as associations towards 15 approaches for his pieces. Within this particular group of pieces the artist deals with themes such as: political history, cultural theory, popular culture, masculinity and modified cars. The collection includes a vast amount of varied pieces ranging from video, hand carved marble and papier-mâché sculptures. The artist sets up a very interesting compilation of the literal and metaphorical references, simultaneously providing background information on many of his chosen subjects and leaving them open to interpretation.

I thought this was my favourite aspect of the exhibition, that it was very open to interpretation. Another of my favourite aspects was the intense symbolism and use of the media in a very unusual and surreal way. I felt that the collection together had a message and was very intriguing more than anything else. It made you think about certain aspects in history such as war but used interesting media to portray this. My favourite piece in the collection was a collage which portrayed stills from a documentary based on world war one. This collage included quotes aimlessly placed across the piece. This was my favourite out of the collection because although the quotes seemed random, they were from both sides of the situation at hand. Some of these quotes were from the victims and some from the people who caused the chaos and destruction.

I would highly recommend this exhibition ot anyone interested in history or visual art.

Color is for me the purest form of expression, the purest abstract reality.

Image: Imma (http://www.imma.ie/en/page_197019.htm)

This is a review of the exhibition 'Signal to Noise' by american abstract artist Terry Winters in IMMA. The exhibition displays a collection from the past ten years of painting and drawing.

In my opinion it was an utterly mesmerising collection of pieces, mostly because of the vast amount of paintings that were displayed. On the Imma website it states that this collection "explores the cerebral spaces of information technology and issues of cognition and narration as they relate to abstract painting"

As many abstract paintings go, i have never seen such a different aspect on this genre. The feeling i got from the collection was one of forcefullness and perfectionism. Even though these paintings and drawings are considered abstract there is a certain formality to each piece because of the amount of details that are added and how each one is similar in some way or another. In my opinion i think that this a brilliant collection that oozes feeling and emotion.