Two new exhibitions at Ballina Arts Centre

Two new prestigious and thought-provoking exhibitions opened at Ballina Arts Centre this month. Each focus on relationships with place, and explore our physical and psychological connection to nature and the consequences of breaking those connections.

'One Day: Borderlines of Memory', by Eamon O’Kane, is an evocative exhibition showcasing O’Kane’s development of artworks based on childhood memories of growing up near the border with Northern Ireland.

The exhibition includes a series of silkscreen works on paper inspired by the ‘Tree Test’, developed by Swiss psychologist Charles Koch, which requires patients draw a broad-leaved tree on a blank sheet of paper. The drawings are used to analyse personality and emotional history. 

Having drawn trees since childhood, O’Kane has spent the past decade exploring how these relate to human psychology. While processing his grief over the loss of his father, O’Kane transformed his detailed pen and ink drawings to silkscreen works. He pushes the process, deliberately flooding the screen, forcing errors and creating inkblots that evoke an eeriness reminiscent of the Rorschach inkblot test. 

The exhibition also includes an animation of a charcoal wall drawing of a sycamore tree that stood on the front lawn of O’Kane’s family home. This tree, which was over 300 years old, is said to have provided a canopy for a meal for King James II when he stopped at the house after the siege of Derry.

The centrepiece of the exhibition is a new installation featuring drawings derived from photographs taken by his parents in 1976. They capture the family in the surrounds of their historic home, Cavanacor House. O’Kane reflects on how growing up there, and being close to his parents’ artworks, have influenced his own creative practice. Both his parents studied art in Belfast in the 1960s and taught art in Strabane in the 1970s. Video works draw on images, memories and interviews with family and friends as well as documentary footage to investigate the experience of being an artist in a conflict zone.

The exhibition also features a new series of sculptures, some inspired by the military surveillance towers of O’Kane’s childhood, others featuring human heads concealed under cloth with tree-like supports intertwining the obscured human forms. These draw inspiration from art, history, and his mother’s fiberglass and ceramic figure sculptures.

This exhibition explores various borders, and borderlines of memory related to the artist’s childhood. It addresses geographical borders established through military conflict and conquest, as well as the perceived border between humanity and nature.

The second exhibition at Ballina Arts Centre is entitled Fragile Island, by Catherine Weld. It is an exhibition that proposes that the land is both timeless and embodies all time. The land holds the memory of trees, animals, birds, small creeping creatures and the footsteps of man. Separation from the spirit of the land is leading to our demise; experiencing the sensations of the land will reconnect us, placing us in a continuum; land is the past, present and future, beauty and destruction combined.

Catherine explains: "As I walk and draw in the landscape, I have a sense of isolation and also connection; no one is here but I am not alone. There are the footprints of those few people who know this place and were here yesterday; they will come again tomorrow. There are deer tracks and the song of birds barely glimpsed. There are traces of the past in the abandoned turf cuts, and intimations of the future in the deciduous trees that will reach maturity long after I have gone. 

"The paintings that follow are a conversation between materials and place, between the physical properties of oil paint and charcoal, canvas and paper and my passion for searching for what is real in a landscape through the process of abstraction. I aim for finished works that challenge the viewer, are rich in colour, line, tone, layering and texture and are imbued with atmosphere and a sense of place." 

Catherine's creative career began in the UK as a social documentary photographer, followed by seven years as facilitator of a hospice-based project making books and films with people at the end of life. After obtaining a graphic design degree, she moved to West Cork in 2012. 

Alongside painting, she loves life drawing and teaching and has been involved in several environmental campaigns through the arts. Her work has been exhibited widely including at the RA Summer Show in London, the RUA in Belfast, and the Vue Art Fair and RHA, Dublin. Her paintings are in the OPW and Cork County Council art collections as well as in private homes in Germany, Switzerland, the USA, the UK and Ireland.

These two prestigious and thought-provoking exhibitions are available to view in the Galley and main concourse at Ballina Arts Centre until October 5th. Opening hours are Tuesday to Saturday, 10am to 6pm.