4th – 27th August 2022

‘Awash With Colour’ is a collaboration between AAEX (Art as Exchange) who are based in Dundalk and Moposogs (Monaghan Poets and Songwriters Group). The project ‘Awash With Colour’ came about during the lockdown and involved an exchange of inspirational pieces between the two groups.

All in all over 90 original pieces of work make up the project produced by 37 artists and writers. The work is a mixture of songs, poems, prose, short stories and all sorts of visual art including oils, water colour, pen and ink, mixed media and photography.

https://aaex.artspark.ie/

Opening Launch: Wednesday 3rd August 2022 at 7pm with performances in the Studio Theatre.

1st September – 1st October 2022

Lijuan McQuillan is An Táin Arts Centre’s 7th Emerging Visual Artist in Residence. Her exhibition will comprise of work she has completed as part of her Summer Residency in the Basement Gallery. 

Lijuan is a painter and printmaker born in China and living in Ireland over 20 years. Her exhibition will demonstrate  her interest in painting’s ability to connect with day-to-day life. Her paintings bring together her diverse past experiences of living in China and her present experience of living in Ireland. Her art not only translates experiences across space and time, but also enhances her own identity, and highlights the complex relationship of Western European and Asian identities. Lijuan intends to stimulate the viewers imagination by featuring subjective story-telling through the body of realistic and surrealistic art works, with their aesthetic beauty, saturated colours, and the stories that unfold on their canvases.

 “Having had the privilege of growing up and living in China and the present experience living in Ireland, I will integrate my sense of East-and-West cultural heritage and my personal perspective to create a series of paintings, prints and installations.”

The exhibition will include Irish and Chinese elements and will create a cultural, societal and personal dialogue.  

Opening Launch: Wednesday 31st August 2022 at 7pm.

11th October – 12th November 2022

The exhibition will bring together new works completed during the Residency Programme 2021-2022 in the media of printmaking, performance, mixed media and painting.

The artists involved in the 2021 – 2022 Programme at Creative Spark were Vivienne Byrne (Co. Louth), Dónall Billing (Co. Antrim), Brigid Mulligan (Co. Galway), Eileen Fergusson (Co. Monaghan), Suzanne Carroll (Co. Louth), Geraldine Martin (Co. Louth), Alice Bertolasi (Italy) and Neeli Malik (U.K.). This is Creative Spark’s eight residency programme exhibition at An Táin Arts Centre.
 
The Creative Spark Residency Programme is supported by Create Louth and the Arts Council of Ireland and was established to support artists through offering studio space, research time, resources and creative opportunities they may not otherwise have in their own studio or practice. To date the residency programme has supported 45 artists over eight years. 

Opening launch: Wednesday 10th October at 7pm.

24th November – 23rd Decemeber 2022

Make It Make Sense is the inaugural exhibition of the members of Bó Studios. Bó Studios was set up in 2020, by artists Etaoin O’ Reilly, David Callan, Blathnaid McClean and Olivia Hill and is supported by An Táin Arts Centre and the Arts Council of Ireland. ‘Make it Make Sense’ features work from all four members, in ceramics, textiles and mixed media including wood, concrete, video and diegetic lighting.

The exhibition is a reflection and response of the last two years of work since the founding of the studio in Dundalk during a globally unprecedented pandemic of lockdowns and isolation and a positive look towards the future.

The title takes its name from the increasingly desperate refrain of these times “make it make sense” and attempts to apply it to the act of making art during these tumultuous times as well as addressing the challenge of combining the disparate mediums and personalities of the Bó Studios members on a collaborative exhibition. The work is also about what it means to have the space, how the studio, a physical entity of bricks and mortar and a roof, acts as a fertile bedrock and encourages the growth of creativity. Bouncing off of this idea, the work for this exhibition will reflect on GROWTH, MUTATION and METAMORPHOSIS. The artists will present an eclectic mix of work created during the last two years along with individual work created along the themes and a collaborative centre-piece. Reflecting the last two years of the founding of the studio, rather than a carefully curated layout, Bó will embrace the chaos. 

Opening launch: Wednesday 23rd November at 7pm.