Birr exhibition is 'making the ordinary resonate with meaning'
Domestic Mythologies brings together the work of four contemporary artists exploring the domestic space as a place of transformation
“Domestic Mythologies” is a must-see art exhibition, running during Vintage Week in the Old Cinema on Brendan Street. It brings together the work of four contemporary artists exploring the domestic space as a place of transformation.
They also examine the domestic space as being a place of identity, labour and storytelling.
These four talented artists are Asha Murray, Niamh Coffey, Laura Angell and Rebecca Tighe. They use textiles, sculpture and found materials and through them reveal how “everyday objects, inherited narratives and acts of making shape our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.”
They draw on themes of feminism, folklore, ecology and consumer culture; and in the process they challenge the boundaries between the ordinary and the extraordinary, creating new mythologies from the rituals and materials of daily life.
They point out that textiles have long been used to tell personal and cultural stories, “carrying memory, identity and experience through the hand of the maker. Together, these works invite us to see the domestic not as a backdrop, but as a living space where histories, values and identities are continually woven and reimagined.”
Through the process of “Wool Tufting”, Asha employs what she calls a “punch needle wool technique.” She embroiders her wool medium with bright, colourful images taken from her daily, mundane domestic tasks. She believes in the possibility of not being limited by our daily realities. Her work has been exhibited in IMMA, the Irish Museum of Modern Art.
Laura Angell is a Galway-based artist originally from Yorkshire and has exhibited her work all across Europe. Her work is also in public and private collections. Angell is the recipient of bursaries from Galway City Council, The Arts Council Ireland, The RHA and Culture Ireland. She makes multidisciplinary installations, largely textile, sculpture and tapestry, to tell an intended narrative. Thematically her work focuses on failure, success, status and anxiety.
"In this era of AI,” comments Rebecca Tighe, “the making of the art object, is a process that I value ownership of. My textile pieces are made by my hand, from knit fabrics to crocheted found materials using process or constructions that cannot be replicated by machine.”