Irish artist Cléa van der Grijn holds her first solo show at Limerick City Gallery of Art with a body of new work that explores our society’s response to death and loss.
Limerick City Gallery of Art
In this exhibition, Reconstructing Memories, van der Grijn examines and interrogates the disparities between the cultural responses to death in Ireland and Mexico.
In 2014 while completing a ten-week residency in Mexico, van der Frijn became familiar with Mexican society’s relationship with death. The artist spent time in a jungle encased village where she came to understand how death is treated as an integral part of Mexican life – Reconstructing Memory is the multi-facted representation of the that understanding.
The exhibition uses a range of media to explore and express the significance of death is Mexican culture. Featuring large-scale painting, photography, film, sound and sculpture the exhibition invites the audience into a subversive experience where the space becomes a physical representation of an intimate landscape. The audience is also invited to explore our own emotional language regarding grief, mortality and our beliefs in the afterlife – or lack thereof.
In Reconstructing Memory, van der Grijn has shed a kaleidoscopic light on the sensitive subject of death and loss; the artist poses questions about our approach to death and its aftermath. Irish society has undergone a radical transformation in our spiritual identity in recent times. Van der Grijn acts as a sort of cultural anthropologist, re-examining once sacred artifacts and putting them in a modern context in a gentle but thought provoking way.
Reconstructing Memory
Opened on Thursday 27th April 6-8pm by Dr Oscar Mascarenas (Mexico/Ireland).
The official opening will be followed by a performance by Dr Mascarenas and voice artist, Steve Boyland to celebrate National Poetry Day April 27th 2017.
A fully illustrated catalogue accompanies the exhibition with essays by Catherine Marshall, Michael Birchall and Megan Johnston and available at the Gallery.
On Thursday 25th May @ 6pm Sinead Dineen and Katie Verling will conduct a creative workshop continuing the end of life/death creative programme, Kicking the Bucket, subject of a recent documentary on RTE One.
Further information on Cléa van der Grijn - http://www.cleavandergrijn.com
