On 26 October, Marie Phelan and Alastair MacLennan will present a Live Drawing Collaboration, where art and placement converge. Using the windows at the RHA Corner Gallery as the ’canvas’, their actions allow the audience, whether inside or outside the gallery, to witness the process of drawing.
The collaboration between Alastair MacLennan and Marie Phelan unites two distinct yet complementary practices, using drawing as both a performative act and a conceptual gesture. This artistic correspondence was initiated in 2020 through conversations centered around transcendence. The artists have now extended these verbal dialogues into live drawing, creating a platform for performative collaboration. Each live drawing is unique, responding to the space, and to the surroundings it inhabits. Additionally, a deeper, more primal element emerges in the process, engaging with the subconscious, placement, and the now.
Alastair MacLennan was born in Scotland and has lived and worked in Belfast, N. Ireland, since 1975. His achievements as an artist have had a significant influence on performance art, both nationally and internationally. Performing in diverse contexts, and involving metaphor and paradox, his works convey political, social and cultural interrelations.
Marie Phelan is a multidisciplinary Irish artist based between Carlow and Dublin. Using a historical lens, she explores identity and contemporary culture, extending an often-mythological narrative into the present. Her work include drawing, site-specific activations, and digital media.
The artwork will remain in place until 17 November.
Image: Photographer Marie Louise Halpenny, Image courtesy of the artists.
