TRANSFORMATION will be opened with speech by guest speaker

Siobhan Bereen, Programme Director MSc Art Psychotherapy, Ulster University

6pm Tuesday 29th October

Exhibition continues until Friday 1 November, open to the puclic 11-4 Wed - Fri.

1. Artist name: Molly Healy, Art title: Broken Pieces, Material used: Acrylic Paint on MDF & Chipboard

Description about artist/artwork:

Life is a fragile, beautiful thing. Using recycled screen printed wood from my Dad and his sadly passed screen printing partner/best friend, Sander [Glitter&Doom], I found myself staring lostly at an experience already expressed. Using this as my canvas, I attempted to piece together the 'broken pieces' to portray a sense of transformation. An explosion, the cosmos, the darkness, the unknown. Your broken pieces, my broken pieces, our broken pieces, coming together as one. I want your broken pieces, nothing more. Where there are cracks, the light will enter. Never give up.

Hanging work - 3D

2. Artist name: Claire Osborne, Name of piece: Am I Safe Now?, Materials: Clay and natural materials

About the piece:

This clay figure came from a long process in personal therapy exploring fear, safety, isolation and solitude, and was made towards the end of a 3 year process with the my art therapist.

The figure is not quite a woman, but no longer a child. She is curled up in a nest, which protects her with pointed barbs that make it difficult for anyone else to get in. Neither can she get out. It is cosy, yet also a trap. This there is safety and protection, but also hiding and isolation.

When the piece was fired, a happy accident occurred: one of the barbs was displaced, creating a small opening. This happy accident  was met with joy, that now there was a way in and out.

One of the personal stories represented by this piece is that of a teenager who felt she didn't fit it - there were experiences of rejection, shyness, introversion, rebellion, which still play out to this day. This piece offered an visceral experience of the fear and independence that became coping mechanisms for those experiences. Art therapy has given me the chance to recognise these patterns, and through becoming more conscious of them, to become less caught in unconsciously playing them out. Art therapy creates the opening for new possibilities to occur.

About Claire:

Claire comes from a background in community art, where she specialised in working with adults with special needs and in psychiatric hospitals. She has also been a yoga and movement teacher for 23 years and a yoga therapist since 2012.

Claire likes to work with natural materials, such as clay, charcoal, pastels, watercolour and inks, and material from nature, especially through 3-D and large-scale works.

Coming from a background in embodied practices she is curious about how to include this in her own art making, and is interested in what or how body movement occurs during clients' making. She has a strong background in trauma-informed work. To date she has worked with primary school children, with teens in CAMHS, and with adults with sensory needs, mobility issues, acquired brain injury and mental health difficulties in REHAB care.

Websites:

https://www.yogaandmovement.com/

https://osborneclaire.wixsite.com/clairearttherapy

Contact: 0862134080

3. Artist name: Lucia Smyth, Name of Piece: Food for baby bird, Material: Mixed Media

4. Artist’s name: Asia O’Driscoll, Materials: A series of lino and gelatine print.

Description of artwork: A series of lino and gelatine prints, all created from the same pressed ferns. I collected these ferns on a walk in the local woods in Wicklow, with my grandparents. An experience I had countless times all throughout my life. From this particular fern, plucked from the wood on a certain spring day, all of these prints could be produced. A product of circumstance, of environment, of countless variables and yet, an examined thing, an intentional thing, a manipulated thing. Art therapy allows a person to use art to examine, manipulate, record and reflect upon all of the variables that have led to this moment. You get to be the artist of your own life and the transformative nature of art means that all you have to do is dare to make your mark.

5. 2024 MA Art Therapy Group Project, Material: Mixed Media

6. Artist’s name: Hannah O’Hare, Material: Mixed Media