Buying the work, not the name

On the Town: The queue snaked down the street outside the Temple Bar Gallery and Studios (TBGS) in Dublin

On the Town: The queue snaked down the street outside the Temple Bar Gallery and Studios (TBGS) in Dublin. Everyone waited patiently to gain entry to the the Full Circle fund-raising exhibition, a sale featuring paintings by 211 artists, each selling for €360, each measuring 25 x 35 centimetres, and all unidentified.

Crime writer John Connolly was among those waiting. Connolly's next book, The Black Angel, is due out in April. As it's set in the Czech Republic, he's just back from doing research on the 15th-century ossuary in Sedlec, a church decorated with the bones of 40,000 people.

Also in the queue was Gaby Smyth, chair of the board of TBGS and chair of Amnesty International's Irish Section, who had dashed in with his brother, Paul Smyth, a musician with The Jimmy Cake, who play at Whelan's tonight.

One of the artists, Costanzo Idini, from Sardinia, Italy, played some electro jazz divas to set the mood. RTÉ newscaster Aengus Mac Grianna and director Traolach Ó Buachalla were both interested in buying some of the art on show.

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Marian Lovett, director of the TBGS building, said she hoped that the sale would raise about €20,000. According to Emer Marron, Full Circle's project manager, the work in the show ranges from that of recent graduates to that of established artists such as Felim Egan, John Shinnors and Mary Rose Binchy.

"People buy what they want and they don't buy a name," said artist and sculptor Joe Moran, who has had a studio at TBGS since the 1980s. Fellow artist John Moore, one of the founders of TBGS in 1983, said the show also "lifts the profile of the 30 studios. This is a rare occasion to meet the artist and see what's going on. Like the iceberg, you only ever see the tip".

Full Circle continues at the Temple Bar Gallery and Studios until Monday, December 20th