Helena Tobin, Artistic Director at South Tipperary Arts Centre, introduces a new retrospective of work by artist Patricia Hurl, coming to a pair of Tipperary venues this May.
South Tipperary Arts Centre and The Source Arts Centre, in association with IMMA (the Irish Museum of Modern Art) are delighted to present the exhibition Irish Gothic by one of Ireland's most accomplished and respected artists, Patricia Hurl.
This exhibition will be displayed across both venues and includes a selection of work from the artist's major retrospective exhibition at IMMA in 2023.
(© the artist, courtesy IMMA)
Hurl’s work is by its nature, political and traverses the disciplines of painting, multi-media and collaborative art practice. Irish Gothic was the first major exhibition of Patricia Hurl’s work spanning over 40 years and featured more than 70 of the artist’s paintings and drawings.
Since the 1980s, Patricia Hurl has created work in a range of media that deals with loss, pain, frustration and loneliness. This new exhibition features work mainly drawn from her early paintings in which she exposed the suburban home as less than perfect.
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Hurl’s work such as Ministry of Fear (1986) references her experience of growing up in a religious household, where the sacraments and ritual of communion, marriage and death were revered and firmly abided by.
In 1979, Hurl returned to art college having been a housewife and mother for 17 years. "College gave me the opportunity to experiment and develop a new language with which to express myself," she says. "I began to work on a large scale, using oils, which allowed me a physical involvement with painting, which would have been impossible at home. My subject matter is archetypal; drawn directly from my experiences in suburbia, taking on the traditional role of homemaker. I paint with an urgency, which still surprises me."
major retrospective at IMMA in 2023.
A number of the paintings in both venues, come from an exhibition titled The Living Room Myths and Legends at the Temple Bar Gallery in 1988. Hurl recreated her version of the suburban idyll, her living room in the gallery complete with furniture brought from her home; a bookcase, a sofa, TV, and a painted word-carpet. For Hurl, these domestic comforts were a stark contrast to the paintings hanging on the walls which reflected another side of this reality.
In the South Tipperary Arts Centre, key works such as Sleeping Woman (1984) and Hush a Bye Baby (1987) reference the pain of child loss, the often-lonely path and lack of support that accompanies such a traumatic experience. Hurl often uses the act of painting to give a voice to her most personal experiences and to process her feelings of grief and sadness.
© the artist (Pic: IMMA)
Irish Gothic (1985) the painting from which the exhibition borrows its title, can be viewed in The Source Arts Centre and presents a newly married couple standing solemnly in front of a quintessential suburban house surrounded by a picket fence, their faces obscured as they are faced with a lifetime mortgage.
Early works such as The Visitation (1987) in South Tipperary Arts Centre, demonstrate Hurl’s characteristic use of highly expressionistic and layered brushstrokes that tend to blur distinctions between the figurative and abstraction. This stylistic blend intensifies the visceral qualities and emotion in Hurl’s work painted in spontaneous and instinctive bursts.
Originally from Dublin and a former member of Temple Bar Galleries and Studios, Dublin, Patricia Hurl often works in collaboration with artist Therry Rudin. Hurl was a lecturer in Fine Art Painting at the Dublin Institute of Technology. She studied at the National College of Art and Design, 1975 and at Dun Laoghaire School of Art and Design,1984. Hurl was previously co-director of the Damer House Gallery in Co Tipperary along with Therry Rudin, and is currently part of the Na Cailleacha collective.
Drawings and notebooks have always been central to Hurl's practice. Both venues include a selection of publications, prints and sketchbooks dating back to 1988 and provide an insight into the genesis of Hurl's work.
Patricia Hurl: Irish Gothic is at South Tipperary Arts Centre from 10th May – 22nd June 2024, and at Source Arts Centre, Tipperary from 31st May – 29th June 2024. on 11th June The Source Arts Centre will present an in conversation event with Patricia Hurl and artist Aideen Barry, as part of this year's Bealtaine Festival. Find out more here and here.
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