‘Sailing the South Coast, Smerwick to Youghal’,
drypoint, watercolour, chine collé, 70 x 360 cms, drypoint, watercolour, chine collé, 2013
Click on the image to see a larger version.
The coastline, from the wild and rugged
Atlantic coast of County Kerry, traversing the beautiful deeply indented ragged
coastline of West Cork to the low, plainer shores of East Cork - the porous membrane
of the southern edge of the island of Ireland is continually traversed with
arrivals and departures - military, commercial, criminal, or cultural - which
has for long been a vital threshold of contact with continental Europe and
beyond.
It is this coastline, one of the best recreational sailing grounds in the
world, that lies at the source of my work in the exhibition 'Voyage’ and my
attempt to: re-create, re-present, re-imagine, re-live, re-invent, a ‘sea
journey’ and map it in ‘Sailing on the South Coast, Smerwick to Youghal’
The print is based on my experiences of sailing in these waters, intermittently
over the last fifteen years or so, and draws on, among other things, memory,
the logs, sketches, charts, photographs, stories and histories of the islands,
ports and harbours on the way. It is loaded with historical and contemporary
references (… the massacre of the Spanish expedition in Smerwick Harbour 1580,
the Battle of Kinsale 1603, which marked the end of Gaelic Ireland, C18
smuggling in Derrynane, the cocaine haul off Mizzen Head 2008, the sacking of
Baltimore by Dutch and Algerian pirates 1631..), coastal navigation features
(..tides, obstacles, harbours, quays, marinas, shipping traffic, leisure
traffic, navigation buoys..) and many of the wonderful landmarks: lighthouses
(.. An Tearracht, Fort Point Valentia, Mizzen Head, Galley Head, The Old head
of Kinsale, Roaches Point Automatic, Ballycotton..), fishing villages
(..Dingle, Knightstown, Portmagee, Derrynane, Crookhaven, Skull, Baltimore,
Glandore, Union Hall, Castletownsend Courtmacsherry, Kinsale..), magical
Islands (.. the Blaskets, the Skelligs, Valentia, Clear and Sherkin..),
bays and harbours (..Dingle Bay, Bantry Bay, Roaring Water Bay, Gascanane
Sound, Dursey Sound…) and
personal memories, experiences both real and imagined.
Further information:
Link to
Very Well Thus! Sea Journeys in Contemporary Art
Nancy Campbell, Huffington Post, 28/04/2013
http://www.kh-do.de/en/exhibitions/exhibitions2013/voyage_en.html
'Coasting - Galway to Roundstone'
Epsom Pro 7800 injet on white HahneMuhle Photo Rag 308gm
The exhibition Voyage: sea journeys, island hopping and trans-oceanic concepts was held at Künstlerhaus Dortmund, Germany, in 2013, curated by artists Imi Maufe and Rona Rangsch. Voyage, purposefully shown in a land locked city, brought together artists with works that explored the theme in often subtle and less obvious ways than one would expect. We wanted Voyage to tour, and this boxed version is our creative answer to the issues involved with touring exhibitions.
Voyage Boxed aims to represent the original exhibition as a multiple edition in a format of just 14.8x 14.8cm. The box includes a collection of artworks by sixteen of the Voyage artists and the two artist-curators, and the original exhibition catalogue. Voyage Boxed has been produced as a limited edition of fifty, with each artist receiving two copies.
Coordinated by Imi Maufe and Rona Rangsch 2013/14
Further information