ESTUARY

An exhibition celebrating the 25th Anniversary of Fingal County Council Municipal Art Collection.

Thursday 12 September – Saturday 16 November 2019.

Fingal County Council is proud to present this major exhibition curated by Una Sealy RHA, James English RHA, Joshua Sex and Sanja Todorovic. The collection comprises of works by national and international artists, graduates, emerging artists and local artists. Over 200 artworks have been acquired since the collection began in 1994 and it has been continually evolving since with new acquisitions being added when the opportunity and resources present themselves. The collection contains a broad selection of work by artists such as Eva Rothschild, George Potter, John Kindness, Pamela Leonard, Maeve McCarthy, Patrick Scott and Mick Cullen, amongst others.

The curators are all Fingal artists, whose art also features in the collection. They describe their process of selecting work for this exhibition as taking in the physical and natural landscape of Fingal and celebrating local and visiting artists that have arrived to the county through the collection. The official motto of Fingal County Council is Flúirse Talaimh is Mara — the abundance of land and sea which is reflected in some of the artworks featured in the exhibition.

“Fingal has three estuaries, special places where the tide meets the stream. Such a simple phenomenon in nature carries powerful potential both metaphorically and as a prism through which to view art. In other words the collection could be described as a mixing point, or a meeting point, where seemingly opposed works hang alongside one another. The show can be experienced in conjunction with much of its inspiration: nature itself. After seeing the show we can meditate on the works and perhaps understand them more fully while visiting one of Fingal’s watery treasures. While the collection features plenty of significant works by national figures, the four of us agreed, quite instinctively, to focus primarily on Fingal artists. There is a strong flow of nature imagery: skies, birds, harbours, trees. We have also chosen works that we intend as counterpoints to this theme. These include unexpected pieces by artists such as Robert Russell and Eva Rothschild.  It is our hope that this show will prove playful, thought-provoking and inspiring.” Joshua Sex

The exhibition will be accompanied by a second volume of ‘Not in Alphabetical Order’ highlighting this significant collection’s latest acquisitions.  In 2008, the first volume of ‘Not in Alphabetical Order’ was produced and provided a snapshot of work from the collection, the title related to the responsive way in which an art collection developed in Fingal, which spoke to a broad range of relationships, chance and supportive functions of Fingal County Council Arts Office.  Artists were invited to comment on their particular work from the collection which provided an insight in to their creative process and was accompanied by a reflection on its inclusion in the collection by County Arts Officer Rory O’Byrne.