Elemental Fusion 2020

Elemental Fusion – clay, glass, textile, paper: Feb-Mar 2020

FREE ADMISSION

Gallery open 10am — 6pm
Thursday to Sunday.

Showcasing the work of Clare makers Vivienne Bogan, Kathryna Cuschieri, Nicola Henley and Jane Seymour in association with glór, Ennis.

Four Clare makers, Vivienne Bogan, Kathryna Cuschieri, Nicola Henley and Jane Seymour, have come together for this exhibition, based on themes of gender, identity and place.

Vivienne Bogan works with mixed media on paper, found materials and experimental print techniques. Glass Artist, Kathryna Cuschieri captures the fragile natural eco splendour that is slowly eroding in Clare. Textile Artist, Nicola Henley’s work explores our native birds – their relationship to sky, sea and land, reminding us of our own connection with the natural environment. Ceramicist, Jane Seymour completes the foursome, creating vessels made by smoke firing, and also working figuratively, etching into the unfired clay.

Elemental Fusion will showcase a collection of work, pieces mirroring one another in form, shape, colour or texture and yet totally different, unique and independent.

This exhibition will be officially opened on Friday 14th of February at 6pm.

Jane Seymour

Born in 1954, Jane grew up in the marshlands of Suffolk, and the valleys and mountains of Wales. She had an unconventional upbringing with little formal training. In her artwork and ceramics she is mainly self-taught, although strongly influenced by artists such as Coper and James Tower. Her mother Sally Seymour was an artist and potter and her father John Seymour was a travel writer, broadcaster, and author of self-sufficiency books. For a number of years as a young mother she ran a small craft business with her wood-turner partner, painting on wood and silk.

In 1994 Jane moved to rural Co. Clare, Ireland, where she built a house and studio. Shortly after moving to Ireland she began making coil-built vessels which she burnished with pebbles, and smoke-fired in sawdust. The resulting smoke effects are reminiscent of cloudscapes, shorelines and landscapes.

Nicola Henley

Nicola Henley was born in Bristol, England and studied Fine Art Textiles at Goldsmith’s college, London from 1981 to 1984. Since then, she has worked as an artist, exhibiting widely in Ireland, The U.K. and abroad. Born in Bristol, England she moved to Co. Clare in 1991 to set up a studio and continue working on large scale textile artworks.

Her pieces are made using a combination of dying, painting, and screen-printing on cotton calico and texturing the surface with materials such as hand-made Japanese paper and silk, intricately stitched onto the surface by hand and machine embroidery.

Kathryna Cuschieri

Kathryna was born in Malta and moved to England in 1976 where she developed an interest in ceramics and stone carving and obtained her BA (hons) in Fine Art from Coventry University.

She moved to Ireland in 1993 where her glass studio nestles among the hills of Glendree. She is a ‘glass adventurer’ delving deep into its nature, its’ call to exploration. Kathryna has exhibited widely and has received several large public and private commissions.

Vivienne Bogan

A native of Limerick, Vivienne Bogan has for many years exhibited her work in solo and group shows. Her work features in a number of major collections, including, Council of Europe, Brussels; Musée de Beaux Arts, Quimper: Arts Council Collection; National Portrait Collection & Revenue Commissioners, Dublin Castle.