Art

Brutality begins at home: This week’s visual arts highlights

In Acts of Mourning, Doris Salcedo looks at violence through everyday domestic objects

Doris Salcedo, Tabula Rasa IV, 2018

Aidan Dunne's face
Aidan Dunne
Sat Apr 27 2019 - 05:00

Acts of Mourning
Doris Salcedo
Main Galleries, East Wing, IMMA, Royal Hospital Kilmainham, Dublin Until July 21st imma.ie

Born in Bogotá and reluctantly acquainted with Colombia’s recent troubled, fragmented, violent history of brutality and atrocity, Doris Salcedo is renowned for her sculptural installations using everyday domestic materials – furniture, concrete, fabric, clothing, flower petals – often on a monumental scale, in objects that are as if choked and immobilised by grief and loss. Her recent 2018 works, Tabula Rasa, included in this show, broach sexual violence and its personal costs.

Maurice Desmond
New work.
The Lavit Gallery, Wandesford Quay, Clarke's Bridge, Cork. Until May 11th lavitgallery.com

Louth-born, longtime Cork resident Maurice Desmond makes spare, elemental landscapes infused with a calm, contemplative melancholy. While he does not usually work on a large scale, there’s a quiet, understated gravitas and sense of spaciousness to his Rothko-like compositions.

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The Port: Dublin Painting & Sketching Club Annual Exhibition
CHQ, Custom House Quay, Dublin April 29th-May 12th dublinpaintingandsketchingclub.ie

The club’s 141st annual exhibition, thematically based on the Port, marking its second year back in the heart of the city, and the port, following close on two decades in Dún Laoghaire. But that applies to a proportion of specifically made works; there is much else besides. Margo Banks, Michael Gemmell, Vincent Lambe, Pamela Leonard, Tom Ryan and Aidan Hickey (club president) number among the exhibitors.

Experiments and Considerations Touching Colours
Nuala Clarke
Men at Work
Con Mönnich & Peti Buchel
Custom House Studios Gallery, The Quay, Westport, Co Mayo Until May 6th customhousestudios.ie

Nuala Clarke’s paintings exploring “light, colour, reflection and refraction” were inspired – or “prompted” – by her reading of 17th-century philosopher Robert Boyle’s book documenting his experiments on the nature of colour. Con Mönnich’s photographs, in black-and-white from 1974 and in colour more recently, document life and work in West Mayo and Achill; illustrator and cartoonist Peti Buchel enjoys drawing people at work.

School days : Cobh & Great Island
Sirius Arts Centre, The Old Yacht Club, Cobh, Co Cork May 2nd – July 7th siriusartscentre.ie

Photographs submitted by schools and former pupils from Cobh and Great Island offering a retrospective view of “learning, friendship and play”, a project facilitated by Brian Mac Dómhnaill, and linked to the community programme This Must be the Place | Great Island 2019 and See You Tomorrow, an exhibition (May 2nd-July 7th) and series of events (May 2nd-12th) curated by artists Elizabeth Woods and Kevin Leong.