On The Town: After the Aosdána General Assembly this week, many artists converged on the Taylor Galleries in Dublin's Kildare Street to view Cecily Brennan's exhibition, Hero's Engine.
Mick O'Dea, Dermot Seymour, Fergus Martin and Finola Jones (whose own show, Artifically Reconstructed Habitats, is currently running at the Temple Bar Gallery and Studios) were all in attendance at the private view. Others spotted at the opening were architect Tom de Paor, artist Alice Maher, playwright Jimmy Murphy, and Josephine and Cate Kelliher of the Rubicon Gallery.
Many relatives of the artist, including her father, Dr Flann Brennan, and her sister, Helen Brennan, were also at the show.
"It's very poetic. The drawings are very lyrical," said artist Anita Groener, who had just been told of her election that day to Aosdána. "There's pain in the work, but it's done in a very poetic and sensitive way."
Writer Evelyn Conlon chose the watercolour, Curtain, as one of the most powerful works because "it's the notion of what's hidden behind the curtain and it arouses your curiosity to see".
The show's title, Hero's Engine, comes from the ancient inventor, Hero of Alexandria, with the title piece in the show depicting a scientific experiment in which a glass container of water is driven to a frenzy by heating. It demonstrates how "heat and energy is converted into motion and agitation", said Brennan. "In physical and visual terms [it shows] the changes that happen in the body when it is under stress."
The show precedes a major solo exhibition, which will open at the Ormeau Baths Gallery in Belfast on Thursday, June 30th.
Hero's Engine continues at the Taylor Galleries, Dublin, until Tue, 17 May.