Major exhibition for Michelle
SOME people might have a mid-life crisis but Dundalk artist Michelle Rogers is having a mid-career retrospective exhibition at Dublin’s Rathfarmham Castle, opening on June 16.
Entitled ‘ Tread Softly,’ the exhibition traces the work of the artist who divides her time between Rome and New York.
Visitors will have the chance to see paintings like ‘Funeral Sarajevo’ from her first major Dublin show ‘Dark Heart’ which was a collection of paintings made in response to her Caravan of Conscience trip to the borders of Yugoslavia in 1993. The exhibition was also shown in the Basement Gallery, Dundalk.
It will also feature work from all her major shows including Transformations, her first ma- jor international solo show in the Museum of Modern Art in Guadalajara, Mexico to her recent solo show in the Galleria Civica D’Arte Contemporanea in Siracusa, Sicily.
Her street art practice which she has exhibited internationally in response to issues of climate change, xenophobia, church corruption, sexism, bullying and many other issues, will also be featured.
Michelle will be exhibiting two new works for the first time in Ireland, one a portrait of Panti Bliss, inspired by Carravaggio’s St. Catherine, and the other, Eco Primavera, a to scale reworking of Boticelli’s Primaver, including over 100 birds, insects, flowers and small animals that are on the list of threatened species.
Michelle is a past winner of ‘ The Abbey Stained Glass Award’ at the Royal Hibernian Gallery. She has also received many significant commissions,including ‘Out of the shadows’ a painting to celebrate the contribution and achievement of women at Queen’s University Belfast, and an OPW commission for a portrait of President O’Dailaigh, which was subsequently used as the image for a postage stamp.
She sas invited as an environmental artist, by Ban Ki-moon, the eighth Secretary- General of the United Nations, to New York to witness the signing of the Paris agreement in 2016/
The show, organised by the Paul Kane Gallery in association with the OPW, runs until August