Open 10:30–5:00, Tuesday – Saturday
Niamh McGuinne
Carapace
26 August – 7 October
In Carapace, a crusty exoskeleton provides the space in which transformation and healing can take place. It suggests an organic self-made structure or growth, a fortification to hold intruders at bay until the time is right for the occupant to emerge. This formation of the shell is slow and painstaking but also determinedly single-minded. It alludes to healing or protecting through making; the ritualistic process and the layering of strata over time.
This first major solo exhibition by McGuinne, brings together sculpture, print and film which all look at the need for self-preservation, to listen to yourself and learn to read the signs your body is trying to show you. Scale and material are explored and reinterpreted with numerous references to myth and storytelling. Inspired by 19th medical records of Chromidrosis sufferers, or the beauty industry’s exploitation of snail mucus, the works in Carapace are not purely fantastical, but point to how reality can at times stretch the imagination. At its core, is the premise that sometimes in the making of something, the process is as magical/transformative as what is produced.
