Mermaid Arts Centre, Main street Bray, Co Wicklow.

 

 

Aideen Barry / Stephen Brandes / Alan Butler / Mark Clare / Felicity Clear / Róisín Coyle / Culturstruction (Jo Anne Butler + Tara Kennedy) / Jennifer Cunningham / Clodagh Emoe / Fiona Hallinan / Seán Hillen / Jesse Jones / John Jones / Vera Klute / Sam Keogh / David Lilburn / Sean Lynch / Brian Maguire / Bea McMahon / Tom Molloy / Teresa Nanigian / Sorcha O'Brien / Dominic Thorpe / Saskia Vermeulen 

 

 The exhibition will by opened on Thursday 2 December at 6pm

by Brendan Keenan, Irish Independent columnist. It runs until Sat 12 February

 

 

 The Gallery is open 10am-6pm Monday to Saturday 

and until 8pm on performance evenings

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01 272 4030

 

Admission is free

 

 

 

         

 

  Above: research images Jennifer Cunningham

 

As the legendary investor Warren Buffett said, ‘Only when the tide goes out do you discover who's been swimming naked.’  

 

Buffett’s celebrated metaphorical citation offers a humorous mental image of the serious repercussions of careless speculation, one befitting Ireland’s current economic situation with bank bailouts, disappearing billions and severe fiscal crisis. The Swimming Naked Prophecy will offer a range of responses by artists to Ireland’s current social, economic and political circumstances, the recent economic crash and the current mood in Ireland.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Contemporary Irish based artists were invited to respond to Buffett’s quotation with a work on paper of approximately standard A3 size (420cm x297cm).  I responded with a collage and drawing based work. You can see my work below and read my statement  to find out more about the theme of my piece. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Statement

“Not long ago, comparisons were being made between Iceland and Ireland, the joke being, the only difference between the two was a letter in the name.

In this piece a couple of piebalds eating old Irish punts roam about on a ghost estate made out of Icelandic krona. Set against the backdrop of a sky made out of German marks, the work draws comparisons to our economic situation and Iceland's bankrupt state.

Both Iceland and Ireland underwent spectacular economic growth dependent on inflated financial and construction sectors. We now have more than 2800 ghosts estates in Ireland and some 23000 unoccupied houses. One in every five houses in Ireland is now unoccupied.

The issue of ghost estates in Ireland is more than empty houses. It's a symbol of the country's descent from the Celtic Tiger leading the European charge of prosperity to a broken state, crippled by what most would agree was a universal greed: greed of consumers, developers and those who Irish people blame the most, the banks.”