Broken Vessels
Broken Cogs, Oil and Charcoal on Traditional Gesso Panel, 82x59cm, 2021
Broken Vessels is a site specific international collaborative arts project curated by Brent Meistre, in which three South African artists and three Irish artists respond to structures located at Interface, a former salmon hatchery in the Inagh Valley, Connemara. The six artists are engaging with themes of containment , displacement and rebuilding across a range of practices. The exhibition runs through September 2021 as part of Galway International Arts Festival and Clifden Arts Festival.
Hatchery, Oil on Linen, 22 x 18 cm, 2021
The structures imposed on the landscape by the industries of salmon farming and forestry form the subject matter of my body of work for Broken Vessels. These symbols of progress and hope for an industrial future now invoke feelings of regret and solastalgia as they disassemble in the landscape. I feel an ambivalence towards the site, a deep attraction to the strong verticals of the sitka trees, and the broken horizontals of an abandoned shipping container, while also repulsed by what they represent. How can I be drawn to these barren clearfelled areas that open up areas to the light - when they do not provide any cover for other living beings?
Sitka Shadow, Oil and digital print on panel, 19.5x28cm, 2021
Installation Shot from Broken Vessels. Image Credit: Brent Meistre
Broken Vessels Video filmed by curator Brent Meistre
In Connemara’s Inagh Valley, tucked away in Interface, a former salmon hatchery turned artists’ workspace run by Alannah Robins, Broken Vessels sees six artists responding in wildly different ways to the setting. The international (remotely due to circumstances) collaboration curated by South African artist Brent Meistre explores containment, displacement, rebuilding. Christine Dixie’s beautiful billowing indigo scenes on muslin, form a procession above the salmon raceway; revolutionary spoken-word poet Lesego Rampolokeng rants from bush radios in a woodshed, accompanied by an insistent drip from the roof; Louise Manifold’s film creates an apocalyptic vista; sound artist Anne Marie Deacy’s hanging sheets of corrugated iron are haunting, vibrating eerily on touch; Noelle Gallagher’s paintings find beauty in the unexpected, including sitka spruces; Monique Pelser’s ticklesome work exists only as effect–- an American eagle suspended endlessly inside a hatchery tank – conjured via QR code.
Review of Broken Vessels by Deirdre Falvey, The Irish Times, Sep 21, 2021
Clearcut, Oil and digital print on linen on panel, 28x19, 2021 cm
Installation Shot. Image Credit: Brent Meistre
Clearfelled, Oil on Linen, 150 x 100 cm, 2021
Salmon Farm & Sitka Spruce, Oil on Linen, 30 x 24 cm, 2021
Morning Screening on an Abandoned Shipping Container, Oil on Linen, 30 x 24 cm, 2021
Installation Shot. Image Credit: Brent Meistre
Afternoon Screening on an Abandoned Shipping Container, Oil on Linen, 150x100cm, 2021
Installation shot. Image Credit : Brent Meistre
Acid Lake, Oil and digital print on panel, 26 x 19 cm, 2021