Gavin Friday opens Amárach, an exhibition of high end jewellery
Gavin Friday will be opening Amárach, an exhibition of high end jewellery by Irelands’ most acclaimed goldsmiths in Cork this Thursday (September 19th) at 6.30pm. The opening will be hosted by Tuula Harrington of Designworks Studio.
Amárach is an Exhibition of High-end Jewellery by Irish Goldsmiths with a dual sense of value, emphasizing more than the valuable materials used, but also skilled workmanship and creativity. Working together on a common theme of depth and beauty, we aim to showcase a collection that will blow away the public and many misconceived ideas of hand crafted jewellery.
Says Gavin:
“When approached by Tuula to help come up with a ‘Theme’ / ‘Concept’ for the forthcoming Irish Goldsmith Exhibition we spoke of the many possible but the one that rang loudest in my ear was the link between ‘new’ and ‘old’ values that have been forgotten or buried, especially in this post boom recessionary Ireland where its Cultural Identity seems to be walking around like a headless chicken. One could say we very much so ‘threw out the baby with the bath water’.
Whatever, there is no need to rub salt in the wound here. We all gotta move on and start afresh and make a ‘new’ A Modern Ireland. I have drawn a few visual touchstones from our Irish Cultural past, steering well clear of the cliched and over used celtic imagery.
The first ‘touchstone’ I am putting forward is of Louis Le Brocquy’s ‘Tain Illustrations’ based on Thomas Kinsella’s ‘Tain Bo Cuailnge’. These incredible illustrations are so open to a contemporary reinterpretation by way of jewellery. Secondly I have drawn from the work of one of Ireland’s truly great modernists, Mainie Jellet, a pioneer and one of the most important Irish Artists who championed the modern movement.
These two Irish artist’s work is totally out of sync with the usual ‘Celtic’ fodder and they are seen mainly as outsiders. Le Brocquy to a lesser extent, but on a gut reaction it’s these two artists’ work that could open up many doors as inspirational touchstones for the forthcoming Irish Goldsmiths Exhibition. Their work was so forward thinking at a time when the country had just turned independent.”
The exhibition runs from 20th Sept – 31st October 2013. Participating Goldsmiths: Eimear Conyard, Helena Malone, Lee Harding & Sé O’Donoghue, Moritz Schurmann, Natasha Heaslip, Rudolf Heltzel, Sean Osborne, Tuula Harrington.
