Wealth of talent on display at GMIT student exhibition

The annual end-of-year exhibition from the GMIT students, who are graduating from the Creative Arts and Media course attracted a huge turnout last Saturday.

A total of 87 honours degree graduates are displaying their work at the event entitled Niche, and there are some outstanding pieces on show.

Artists are exhibiting in a range of different disciplines including textiles, ceramics, paint, print and sculpture, as well as photography, video installations, documentary films and performance. It includes artists’ talks and tours of the centre. 

This show offers art lovers a chance to see artists at the early stage of their careers and there is some superb work on display.  These include prints, collages and drawings from Holly Ellis based around humans’ needs to put order on the world around us. She uses animal bones and feathers as the basis for her work, which is both beautiful and disturbing. She’s a name to watch for.

Deirdre Deegan-McGee’s show is inspired by her grandmother and her grandmother’s house. She starts with photography, but uses various printing techniques to add to and subtract from the basic prints. This results in evocative semi-abstract pieces in mostly muted colours where items and scenes lie on the threshold of recognition.

Connemara woman Caitlín Uí Chéidigh draws on traditions such as knitting and textiles for her show, which refers to the role of Catholicism in people’s lives. This is done most effectively through a giant, knitted rosary beads made using Aran wool. It’s a beauty.

Family history forms the basis of Curtis Stewart’s quirky copperplate etchings, which feature drawings of various ancestors, accompanied by handwritten stories – presumably fictional, certainly fantastical – about their various lives.

Also in textiles Isobel Murphy’s show, Withering Beauty captures the delicate beauty of flowers using watercolour digital design pattern. There is a real delicacy to this artist’s pictures. 

The same is true of the work from Ellen-Maree Glavin, whose site-specific photographs and paintings explore the beauty of the Slieve Bloom Mountains.

For more, read this week’s Galway City Tribune.