Arts Week with Judy Murphy

The Irish Workhouse Centre in Portumna was packed on Sunday as Shorelines Arts Festival launched exhibitions by leading portrait artist Conor Walton from Dublin and Galway’s Joan Finnegan, whose work is increasingly gaining fans at home and abroad.

Launching these shows, Shorelines’ visual arts curator Margaret Hickey spoke of her delight in hosting an artist of Conor’s calibre and urged people to immerse themselves in the “kaleidoscope of colour and design” of Joan’s paintings. A selection of work by local artists was also opened at that event.

Already in situ was the extraordinary installation, 1845 Memento Mori, by Seattle-based Irish artist Paula Stokes.

That memorial to the Ireland’s Great Famine of 1855-49 is on display in the dining hall of the workhouse for Shorelines. It consists of 1,845 handblown glass potatoes, with that number representing 1845, the year that blight first struck the potato crop. Memento Mori, which took Paula 15 years to complete, has come to Portumna from Dublin Castle where it was previously shown and is accompanied by a soundscape composed by Kieran Kennedy, with vocals from Maria Doyle Kennedy and the Voice Squad. The workhouse setting feels particularly apt for this exhibition, which will run until October 28.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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