TIMELINES GROWTH AND CATASTROPHE
Timelines is a collaborative of 8 innovative contemporary artist weavers; Laois’s Catherine Ryan, along with Muriel Beckett, Tish Canniffe, Frances Crowe, Pascale De Coninck, Lorna Donlon, Terry Dunne and Heather Underwood. This, their third collaboration has been supported by Creative Ireland.
4 April - 10 May
Free to visit
All Welcome to the Exhibition Reception Thursday 10 April, 7pm and to the Artist Talk & Film Screening Friday 11 April, 11am
Exploring ideas of resilience at a time of global challenge, instability and uncertainty, this exhibition showcases a new 1 metre x 5 metre tapestry, eight new individual tapestries and a short documentary film. Drawing from a broad range of diverse visual references, this collaboration also incorporates current UCD plant science research imagery.
UCD plant scientist Joanna Kacprzyk explains “In Ireland, flooding events are becoming more frequent. The image included in the Timelines Growth and Catastrophe tapestry, from a recent PhD project led by Orla Sherwood (funded by Irish Research Council) shows how barley roots adapt to survive in waterlogged soil. Some cells are killed to form channels acting as a snorkel for transport of oxygen to the submerged parts of the plant. I am fascinated by this mechanism where cells sacrifice themselves to save the whole organism.”
Laois based artist Catherine Ryan, who is one of the eight artist weavers, acknowledges Creative Ireland support of this project (through counties Laois, Roscommon, Cork and Wexford) which allowed the artists to produce a catalogue and to also film the entire process. Catherine says “I am delighted that the Timelines Growth and Catastrophe exhibition has been invited to the Dunamaise Arts Centre in 2025. This unique project has been in the making for almost 30 months, bringing together a community of Irish artists/weavers from 6 counties across Ireland. I am sure that everyone who visits the exhibition will be astounded by the skill, the dedication and the stories behind all of the imagery.”
According to textile expert Dr Ann O Mahony who launched the exhibition on Culture Night 20th
September 2024 in Roscommon “The 8 artist weavers have created a powerful and elegiac statement of resilience. Their Timelines Growth and Catastrophe Exhibition is a wellspring of references, mark making and materiality that draws us in, casting a spell. The tapestries in this exhibition touch us deeply, communicating in a fluid, visual language beyond words, understood across cultures and time barriers.” She concludes, “The courage of the artists in creating this large-scale work is nothing short of heroic. This impressive exhibition, a praise song to Earth’s mysterious powers of regeneration, is a waymark for all our journeys, a pathway of hope and resilience in a time of denial and despair.”
