A group show in Ballymun aims to stop the clock and capture a moment in time during its regeneration, according to sculptor Patrick Kavanagh, curator of Here and Now at the area's Axis Arts Centre, which opened this week.
Kavanagh wanted 10 artists "to stop the clock . . . and express through the medium of the arts that captured moment in time . . . the more or less halfway stage of this particular regeneration, or generation, as I like to call it".
Last year, he asked artists in the locality to express "that captured moment in time in triptych . . . I asked 10 artists in Ballymun what they felt about their situation".
"When I arrived here some 40 years ago to Sandyhill, where I still live, it was more or less green fields," added Kavanagh, recalling the change he has seen in Ballymun.
Among the artists who took part in the show was Edith Poole, who was there with her daughter, Deirdre Poole (17), and her partner, Joe Murtagh.
"I was looking at the relationship between my inner and my outer space," she said of her triptych, Inner Space. "I'm reflecting my own turmoil."
Long Weng, who has lived in Ballymun for 10 years, having moved to Ireland from China, said his painting, Ballymun People: Supermen, Superwomen, reflects the "big changes" he has seen in the area.
"The regeneration of Ballymun is making a difference to the
psychology of the place. This theatre space actually works," said
Fine Gael councillor Bill Tormey, who
was also at the opening.
The other participating artists in the show are Rita Cahill, Bob Dixon, Stewart Dowie, John Duffy, Michael Geraghty, Harriet Leeck, Ray Sherlock and Stano.
"I wanted that sense of there being the two sentinel towers and the road veers off, there's a new beginning there," said Duffy of his painting, Main Street.
Here and Now continues at the Axis Arts Centre, Main Street, Ballymun, until Sat, Mar 3