#100Muses inspiring Dublin

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#100Muses, art, ArtBox, Dragana Jurisic, Dublin, Exhibition, Ireland, Irish Times, muses, photography, RHA, Royal Hibernian Academy

Just around the corner of St Stephens Green, tucked  away on Ely Place is the wonderful RHA (Royal Hibernian Academy). For the 185th time the RHA Annual Exhibition is opening its doors to show more than 500 pieces of art (26th May – 9th August).

Like every year most works are curated through an open submission, and like every year it is a visual feast and a thought provoking experience.

This year one of the pieces that caught quite a lot of attention is Dragana Jurisic’s #23 of 100 Muses. This study of a seated nude is not only beautiful but raw, and shows the female form without any excuses.

As the Irish Times puts it in today’s paper:  Dragana Jurisic’s photograph, #23 of 100 Muses, a study of a seated, nude figure, is a considerable work. Jurisic is a well-established photographic artist, and this piece, from a project on the “female gaze”, has real gravity and presence and none of the flimsiness increasingly identified with photography as disseminated through Instagram and other digital platforms.

But #23 of 100 Muses is just a taste of what the project #100 Muses has in store. As part of a much larger project the 100 Muses sadly won’t been on display just yet. But to wet the appetite ArtBox is allowing a sneak peek of the work.

For one whole month (29th May – 27th June) ArtBox is exhibiting the first chapter of Dragana’s work.  #100Muses inspiring Dublin to embrace a true celebration of the female form in all it’s complexity, beauty and power.

#100 Muses

fairy-tale pictures

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Alice Maher, Aoibheann Greennan, art, Beth O'Halloran, Dublin, Exhibition, fairy tales, Once Upon a Picture, The Ark, W.B. Yates

The Ark in Dublin’s Temple Bar is a wonderful place for children to explore art and discover their own talents. Yesterday they opened the exhibition Once Upon a Picture , a collection of artwork to inspire young and old to rediscover fairy-tales and their creative possibilities.

As you wander around the exhibit you can’t help but feel like a giant, everything is hung at hip height to make it easy for children to properly see the art, making it easier for them to engage. For  adults this means bending and hunkering down, an odd sensation in a gallery but one that forces physical participation.

The selection may be small, but this only encourages one to linger longer and is perfect for a child’s shorter attention span. And since all the art has magical, otherworldly qualities The Ark invites all visitors to sit and draw or write down any tales the pictures make them imagine. And for all who want to spend a little bit more time in the world of imagination there are several workshops and events they can join in on.

The idea is inspired by W.B Yates and his dedication to the preservation, collection and the imagination of Irish fairy tales and Folklore. This great Irish poet was born 150 years ago and as the world, and Dublin (his birthplace) in particular, celebrates his influence on 20th century literature The Ark is only one of many galleries to honor him.

I for one enjoyed my trip to The Ark and enjoyed being inspired and urged to create. And maybe, just maybe, I’ll find a few minutes over the next few days to write my own fairy-tale filled with giants and fairies, monsters and ghouls, magic and the impossible.

A wonderful piece by Irish artist Alice Maher (Centaurius, charcoal on paper, 2006)

Aoibheann Greennan, Lotus Eater (both Staff and Puffin) papier-mache, 2013)

Beth O’Halloran, Sylvan Setting series, mixed media, 2014

Exhibition Opening – YU:The Lost Country

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art, Black Lamb and Grey Falcon, Dragana Jurisic, Dragana Jurisic YU: The Lost Country, Dublin, Exhibition, Jurisic, photography, photos, Rebecca West, RHA Ashford Gallery, Royal Hibernian Academy, Royal Hibernian Academy (RHA), YU, Yugoslavia

Last night the Royal Hibernian Academy (RHA)  was buzzing with activity at the opening of five exhibitions. One stood out for many –  YU: The Lost Country by the talented photographer Dragana Jurisic.

This extraordinary exhibition is a photographic exploration of identity, displacement and memory. Jurisic has a personal interest in these topics as she herself is from Yugoslavia, a county that no longer exist, a home she can no longer return to.

Formed after the first world war Yugoslavia fell apart in 1991, splintering into seven countries, leaving three whole generations struggling to figure out who they where and where they belonged, many deciding that they belonged nowhere.

Since Yugoslavia was, as Mussolini put it so eloquently “…cobbled together in Paris” after World War I, it was always a country that struggled with identity, artificial borders forcing strangers and enemies to become one.

Fascinated by this the Anglo-Irish writer Rebecca West wrote her masterpiece Black Lamb and Grey Falcon based on her travels to Yugoslavia and it’s publication in 1941 coincided with the Nazi invasion of the country she had grown to love, even calling it her motherland.

Jurisic used West’s book to retrace her own journey around her lost homeland in an attempt to recreate something that was lost but soon found that the sense of displacement and lost identity was stronger there, than in the country she now lives in.

This shows in Jurisic’s work: ” Photography, contains elements such as fleetingness, which allow it to capture that sense of rootlessness and dislocation with relative ease. Both exile and photography intensify our perception of the world. In both the memory is in its underlying core. Both are characterised by melancholy.”

The result of this ambition journey is the wonderful exhibition YU: The Lost Country , a visual journey into the past and present punctuated by West’s prose and Jurisic’s own words. The attempt to answer the universal question about identity in a very personal way.

And since Jurisic herself follows Roland Barthes’ assertions “that photography is more akin to magic than to art“,  it is no surprise that many of the photos have an otherworldly feel to them and leaves the viewer wondering about their own memories and identity.

Dragana Jurisic YU: The Lost Country

September 05, 2014 – September 26, 2014

RHA Ashford Gallery