Artist friends join forces for PorterShed exhibition

Three Athenry-based artists are exhibiting their work in a new show, Facets, which is running in Galway City’s PorterShed venue until August 10.  The work is by Mary Ryan, Vincent Godfrey-Glynn and Patricia Fahy – whose collection is based on a collaboration with local writer Trish Bourke.

Facets was officially opened on Friday by artist and Galway Arts Festival co-founder Ted Turton, who was also responsible for creating some of the Arts Festival’s early and iconic posters.

The three artists involved have previously shown their work in group shows in Athenry and “are good friends as well, so we gravitated to doing this show,” explains Patricia, who is co-ordinating the exhibition.

Mary Ryan started her artistic career in textiles, and exhibited successfully in the UK before returning to Ireland in the late 1990s. She has previously worked to commission, exhibiting in the Design Yard in Temple Bar, the Crafts Council of Ireland and the Irish Pavilion at the Hanover Expo. Mary graduated from GMIT Cluain Mhuire, with a Fine Art Honours degree in painting in 2012 and has shown in several galleries and festivals, nationally and internationally since them.

Detritus, her work for this show marks a new departure for Mary and her thought-provoking series of 3D installations are based on the subject of recyclable materials.

This project began when she started to research common items that go in the recycling bin and became “alarmed at the complications of waste disposal and recycling”.

Many plastic items don’t get recycled due to their size or the economics of the recycling industry, she points out. “Other items that are labelled biodegradable, will break down but are not necessarily harmless. They may take a very long time, for instance elastic bands take 50-100 years.

“Some things may produce methane while breaking down or release harmful toxins or fibres that leach into the aquifers and ultimately into rivers and oceans. The whole issue is a minefield.”

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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