Led by artist Ellen Duffy whose work is featured in In and of Itself, this lecture will offer visitors an insight into Ellen’s practice and the works by her that are included in the exhibition. In addition, Ellen will discuss her involvement in this group show and speak about the art of abstraction more broadly.
In and of Itself is an intergenerational presentation of abstraction, a style that came to the fore in the early decades of the 20th Century, heralding a democracy of the visual that claimed to usurp the art of the privileged of previous ages. While vital to the definition of Modernism by the mid-century, it was shuffled aside by other strategies, such as Pop Art and Conceptualism, that fed on recognisable images and narratives.
Yet abstraction has persisted as a valid vein of art making as this exhibition attests to. It is built on formal qualities dealing with shape, colour, geometry, materiality, scale, weight and gravity – more the algebra of seeing, than its arithmetic.
Featured Artists: Elizabeth Archbold, Tinka Bechert, Helen Blake, Megan Burns, John Cronin, Ellen Duffy, Taffina Flood, Jane Fogarty, Richard Gorman RHA, Leah Hewson, Ronnie Hughes, Joanna Kidney, Fergus Martin, Sinéad Rice, John Noel Smith, Charles Tyrrell ARHA, Samuel Walsh, Corban Walker, Michael Warren RHA and Sarah Wren Wilson.
BIO
Ellen Duffy is a Visual Artist from Dublin. Her practice manifests itself by using site responsive installations, works on paper and sculpture to build networks that call to the interconnections between the viewer, the space, the work and the artist. Ellen received her BFA(Hons) from the Technological University of Dublin in 2019. Her work was selected for the RDS Visual Art Awards of the same year and subsequently won the RHA Graduate Studio Award.
Since 2019 Ellen has gone on to show work across the country in Cork, Belfast, Dublin and Leitrim. She has received funding support from Fingal Arts Council, The Dock, Leitrim, Summer Commissions. Ellen’s collaborative work with Artist/Curator/Co- director Kate Murphy was documented in the Visual Arts News Sheet in 2021.
Ellen is the current artist in residence at the Draíocht Gallery 22/23, Dublin.
Image: Ellen Duffy, A fragment of things, steel grid and rope x 2, variable dimensions, 2021.
