Surface Tension brings together the work of three artists, John Kindness, Catherine Barron and Norman Mooney, for whom the surface they work on and work with is an integral part of the aesthetic and conceptual underpinnings of their practice.
Kindness and Barron have made drawing, painting and engraving on unusual surfaces an intrinsic part of their work, as though harking back to our primal instinct to make images on whatever is to hand. As Kindness points out, “drawing on paper and painting on canvas occupy a relatively brief period in the history of creativity”. Kindness will be showing works on ox bone, car bonnets, washing machine panels, aprons and toilet seats, while Barron will show paintings on Bakelite records, antique book covers and playing cards.
The exhibition also features the work of New York-based Irish artist, Norman Mooney, whose lustrous surfaces of mirror-polished steel and clear-coated aluminium panels interact with and distort the world around them. In addition, the show features works by Mooney on the more traditional support of paper where is image is imparted onto to the surface by smoking it, a process that just stops short of damaging the paper's delicate fibres. The tension in Mooney’s case comes from the quivering, almost kinetic presence of the work that ripples and shimmers, even in the peripheral vision of the viewer.
This is the first showing in Dublin for a number of years by the London-based Kindness. His career to date includes solo exhibitions at the Ulster Museum and the Philadelphia Institute of Contemporary Art, while his work is the collections of the British Museum, The V&A Museum, IMMA and the Hugh Lane.
Catherine Barron has had three solo exhibitions at the Molesworth as well as one at the Panter & Hall Gallery in London. She has been an invited artist at the Royal Hibernian Academy Annual Exhibition in Dublin and at The Royal Academy Summer Show in London. One of her portraits on a Bakelite record has been shortlisted for the 2015 Hennessy Portrait Prize and will go on view in the National Gallery of Ireland from November 14th.
Having graduated from NCAD in 1992, Norman Mooney was awarded the Third Degree Programme at the IMMA from 1992 to 1993. In 1994, he moved to New York where he is represented by Waterhouse & Dodd. Recent museum exhibitions include, 1, 2, 3 Volume at the Siqueiros Museum in Mexico City, Beyond Borders in Abu Dhabi and Close your Eyes at Martine Chaisson in New Orleans.
Listen to the podcast HERE of John Kindness talking about the exhibition on RTE Radio One's Arena on Friday November 6th.
