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Jennifer Cunningham Cathy Hayes
'Abode’, An exhibition by Jennifer Cunningham and Cathy Hayes
Previews Thursday 5th August at 6.30pm- to be opened by Gary Jermyn at 7.30pm.
Continues until Friday 5th September
Work is on view in Overend's Café. Free Admission. Open Monday- Sunday 10am-5pm. A list of prices is available on request from
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or on site.
Airfield was the former home of Letitia and Naomi Overend, they lived here their entire lives and enjoyed working on the farm and gardens. Prior to their death they set up the Airfield Trust, leaving this unique estate for educational and recreational purposes. Today Airfield is a place of escape, discovery and learning which celebrates farming and gardening through a range of exciting learning and cultural programmes.
Letitia and Naomi Overend in particular had earned quite a reputation in Dublin and further a field and are remembered vividly for their spectacular motor cars, their love of the outdoors and also as a symbol of, I suppose what one could term, the old world (i.e. the world of the landed estate house, or even, the gentry class)
When having the show with Cathy we decided to use the theme of home as a starting point. I was doing research at the time on the uncanny or the unheimlick. I also enjoy the outdoors and when out walking discovered Moore Hall, a large landed estate house in Co Mayo. I was so struck by the place I immediately decided to make work on it.
A lot of my work is to do with the loss of innocence and youth. I am also influenced by myths and fairytales, and literature, as you can see from some of the titles of the work like the Go between, Playing pilgrims progress, which I read about in Little women, and The Oak, the ash and the Bonny Ivy Tree, which is the title of an old English ballad about a maiden who moves to London.
"A North Country maid up to London had strayed,
Although with her nature it did not agree.
She wept and she sighed, and so bitterly she cried,
"How I wish once again in the North I could be!
Oh the oak and the ash, and the bonny ivy tree,
They flourish at home in my own country."
Moore Hall 1909 Moore Hall 2009
Artist Statement.
‘Of course thanks to the house, a great many of our memories are houses, and if the house is a bit elaborate, if it has a cellar and a garret, nooks and corridors, our memories have refuges that are all the more clearly delineated.’
The poetics of Space, Caston Bachelard
This body of work is based around Moore hall, a ruined house with a very interesting history and the surrounding woodland. Moore hall was built in 1795 and was burned down by the IRA in 1923. Only the shell of the house now remains, though one can still see traces of the old Italian plaster work.
Forests too are rich in connotations, throughout history they have acquired the characteristics of a spectre, with the stories of Red ridding hood, Goldilocks, Snow white and the seven dwarves, to the more recent Blair witch project
A young girl wanders alone through the forest, she encounters herself. The work deals with heterotrophic space, the viewer is left uncertain as to whether events have taken place in the past or are happening currently.
The show is about my own subjective perception of a strange place and deals with a hidden substrate of the visible world. It looks at how a place can take on aspects of the people who once lived there and in a way can be construed to represent ones persona, which is invisible at first glance to the outside viewer. Jennifer uses the media of painting, print and video to explore landscape as a backdrop for the psychological inner struggle of her subjects. Time and form are subverted and reinvented through structural fragmentation which is used to amplify the sense of the uncanny.
Special thanks to Timothy Acheson and Sile O Sullivan
Some images of the opening night and speech
The Opening of the exhibition went really well. The renowned poet Gary Jermyn who was opening the show wrote a lovely poem looking at the common strands in our work
HOME IS...
in a time lacking in truth and certainty
and filled with anguish and despair
we all must strive
to give back to the world
through our work
a portion of its lost heart
there I was
daydreaming
floating high above the world
seeing mother earth in a different light
the tender creeping light of a new dawn
the abode of the blessed
and I saw women of all shapes and sizes
of all colours and creeds
in all kinds of ordinary and extraordinary positions
in bed
in the kitchen
standing by the sink
sitting on a chair
deadheading geraniums
doing daily chores
a homesick girl
looking wistfully to another place another time
another dreaming of cupcakes while laying in a big brass bed
set amid the ordinary clutter and chaos of the everyday -
the Imelda Marcos shoes
the island views
the polka dots and patterns
teapots and teacups and mops
cupcakes and magnolia and old lace
the fruit and veg
the bananas and pomegranates
the figs with juicy flesh and wrinkled bottom
and the feeling that nature is invading everywhere
with its lush verdant greenery
a thin tree
a spider plant
a bed of lush loveliness to writhe upon
foliage everywhere
like wild rhubarb invading an island
there I was
daydreaming
floating high above the world
but then suddenly
I grew troubled
for I saw a young woman
a girl with red hair and a blue dress
running scared
running through the woods
by a river bank
peering out from behind a tree
haunted by a house that was not a home
a big grey house in the woods
and I wanted to take this girl’s hand and say
“don’t be afraid
there’s no need to run
there’s no need to hide
there’s no need to be afraid
come let me introduce you to some other friends
who know the secret of making a house a home
there’s no need to feel alone”
and there we would all be
sipping tea and nibbling on cupcakes
the girl with red hair and a blue dress
and all these exotic erotic women
and me
in the abode of the blessed
and then I would take two of them by the hand
and I would say
Cathy and Jennifer
you are wonderful
for tonight – for us-
you have given back to the world
through your work
a portion of its lost heart
(c)Gary Jermyn 5 August 2010
first read at Airfield House on Thursday 5 August 2010
at ABODE
an exhibition of new work by
Jennifer Cunningham and Cathy Hayes