Over sixty artists feature in folklore zine launched in Kilkenny

Artists from all over the world, many of whom are living and working in Kilkenny gathered in Kyteler's on Friday evening to celebrate the launch of their latest publication, a folklore zine.

Colm Dowling, who is involved in the publication and also works as a rigging artist at Lighthouse Studios explained how the publication came about.

“A zine is a personalised booklet of artwork, normally it is just for one artist but we decided to do it with multiple artists to give them a platform to showcase their works. There are sixty artists taking part in the zine and it is all original artwork which adheres to the theme of folklore.

“The scariest thing for the artist is the blank page so we give them a theme and a colour palette to work with. People put a lot of effort into the work that they contributed and they are excited to have the opportunity to show it to people,” explained Colm.

“A special thank you to all the artists who helped contribute their amazing artwork to make the Zine possible, to all the members of the Zine Council and to all the people who helped support creating The Zine including Paulina Zurakowska and Matias Delfos Poggini who organised the 2018 and 2019 Zines,” added Colm.

The publication is available to purchase via the Insta handle zinemachine01 for €5. The group are a non for profit collective.

nerd quiz

Colm also organises a monthly ‘nerd’ quiz which has become a great success.

“A nerd is someone who is very enthusiastic about a topic, that could be sci fi, fantasy, movies, animation games or anything else. We set a topic every month and people are welcome to come along.

“It started in January in the back room of Cleere’s and we expected around 12 people to show up and over thirty people did so we had to find a bigger space. We now meet in Kyteler's on the last Thursday of every month and we had seventy people at our last quiz. It is donation based and all donations go into a prize pot for the winner, so the more people donate, the bigger the prize. There is a huge interest in the quiz and all are welcome.”