This exhibition is the second in the second series of Futures, a sequence of exhibitions that endeavours to document and contextualise the work of emerging artists, around who exists a growing critical and curatorial consensus.
The artists in Futures 2010 are selected from a number of sources – from various artist-led initiatives and independent group shows, to a developing peer consensus that attempts an objective view of different artistic practices that have emerged in recent years.
The artists chosen for Futures 10 are Oisin Byrne, Rhona Byrne, Fiona Chambers, Niall de Buitléar, Damien Flood, Magnhild Opdol and Ailbhe Ni Bhriain.
The foundation of Oisin Byrne‘s practice has been simple paper in various guises, from large-scale origami installations to astrological maps pierced into cardboard, as well as large scale painting and perfomative and collaborative projects with astrophysicists, fashion designers and composers.
Rhona Byrne will present a series of works examining the amusement park industry and in particular, wooden roller coasters, the physical experience of the thrill of the escapade and the people who delight in it.
Fiona Chambers‘ practice is concerned with societal trends, mass culture and communication. Visual imagery from television, the internet, magazine and newspapers forms the basis for various interrogations, with the medium employed dictated by the subject.
Niall de Buitléar‘s work is primarily an exploration of form and materiality through accumulative processes. He works with materials that possess a prior function or association rather than traditional mediums.
Damien Flood‘s painting creates landscapes that reference the history of painting with an underlying, otherworldly element. Appearing paradoxical in nature, the works move from landscape to near complete abstraction.
Magnhild Opdol‘s recent work is a detailed investigation into the nature of death, or more specifically the remains after life. She documents these remains using various methods, working around the ideas of ‘the end as the beginning’, creating a new history from the remnants of the past.
Ailbhe Ni Bhriain creates complex video works using landscape as a basis for its ground, yet through intervention with the pictorial space, creates a new world in which place and time are out of sync. She focuses on constructed and composite digital imagery, producing an intersection of varying and otherworldly realities, revealing the work’s fabrication and our tentative relationship with the truth associated with digital imaging. She conjures a “displaced-presence”, a meditation on the origin of the image and our relationship to it.
Extract from Futures 10, by Ruth Carroll. Please see the Irish Arts Review, September edition for full text.
A full colour catalogue documenting both Futures 09 and Futures 10 will accompany this exhibition.

Selection of images from the exhibition