ARTIST JANET EXPLORES OUR CAPACITY FOR VISUALISATION

WEXFORD ARTS CENTRE has managed to secure a large scale exhibition by Janet Mullarney, a woman widely regarded as one of Ireland’s most important artists working today, to show during the opera festival.

My Minds I is an Arts Council touring exhibition curated by Aoife Ruane, director of Highlanes Gallery in Drogheda, with lighting design by Marcus Constello. It was first shown at High Lanes and travelled to the Butler Gallery in 2015 and will open at the Arts Centre on October 15.

The title of the exhibition, My Minds I, refers to the the mind’s eye and the human ability for visualisation, to see things with the mind and the power of the psychic imagination that communicates subterranean messages to be deciphered.

In the exhibition, small fragile sculptures arranged on light boxes stand alone in large open spaces to create intriguing tableaux in a mysterious theatrical world. Dramas are played out but never pinned down. Everything is beautifully elegant and precisely observed. Every pose is exact.

She is not telling a story. ‘In that sense I don’t quite know what’s going on. And I don’t want to know,’ the artist has said.

Born in Dublin, Janet Mullarney lives between Ireland and Italy. She has won many awards and her work is represented in private and public collections in Ireland including the Arts Council, the Irish Museum of Modern Art, the Hugh Lane Municipal Gallery, the Office of Public Works and Limerick City Gallery of Art.

She has exhibited extensively in Ireland, Europe and around the world and has many important works in public places including Groningen in Holland; the Royal Victoria Hospitals, Belfast, and Cherry Orchard Primary School, Dublin. She is a member of Aosdána.

A full-colour catalogue with texts by the art historian William Gallagher and the writer and documentary maker Manchán Magan will be avilable at the exhibition.

Discovery pens will be available to visitors, giving access to audio information. This is facilitated in partnership with Arts & Disability Ireland, with funding from the Arts Council.

The exhibition was awarded an Arts Council touring grant to Highlanes Gallery in partnership with the Butler Gallery and Wexford Arts Centre. It was sponsored by Clarke’s Bar in Drogheda, the former home of the 20th century artist Nano Reid.