Roger O'Reilly - Estuary VIII. Oil on Canvas 120cm x 120cm

Roger O'Reilly - Estuary V. Oil on Canvas 70cm x 70cm

Roger O'Reilly - Estuary VI. Oil on Canvas 70cm x 70cm

Roger O'Reilly - Estuary II. Oil on Canvas 70cm x 70cm

The 35th annual Kilkenny Arts Festival 2007 was a huge success Ground-breaking theatre, music, literature, visual art, children’s events and outdoor performances abounded, with record crowds attending over 100 events, featuring almost 300 international, Irish and local artists, in venues all over Kilkenny City and County, over the festival’s 10 days and nights.
On exhibit at the Blackbird Gallery were Roger O'Reilly's new collection of paintings, the "Estuary" series. In nine large and medium sized canvasses, O'Reilly work are depicted in abstract oils over solid descriptive line and evoke narratives of gradual and sometimes unexpected topographical change. Influenced by childhood memories of the ever-changing mudflats of the Boyne estuary and the tragedies at Morecambe Bay, the work deals with ebb and flow, the revealed and the hidden.

Aisling Smyth at the Blackbird

In June 2007, the Blackbird Gallery, Kilkenny pexhibited a show of new works by acclaimed Cork artist Aisling Smyth.

This new exhibition “Aquarium” brought together works on paper in acrylics and charcoal which were painted on field trips to Spain, and larger canvases finding inspiration from her sketchbooks which she subsequently completed at her Cork studio.

Field trips and working outdoors are an important practise in Aisling’s work. Travel and new experiences regenerate and reactivate her way of seeing. The body of work with which she is now engaged began on a painting trip to Spain. Expecting a consistent stream of bright Spanish light, she found dull overcast days not unlike those of an Irish October. Nevertheless, like all field trips, adaption is the key, and so she kept drawing - an integral part of her practise - searching for a new point of interest. It came in the form of an aquarium in a small city square in Alicante.

“At first I was intrigued by the fish; their movement, their expressions, the variety of sizes and types. The more I watched them the more it fuelled my imagination to paint. The aquarium has glass on all sides enabling the viewer to see right through to the other side. The issue of space, is for me, a great source of excitement and challenge. This aquarium presented to me a new way of dealing with the problem of depicting movement, space and light on a 2D surface.”

On returning back to her studio in Cork, she set about making monoprints and larger work based on the information she had gathered. The fish were now like distant friends and the space but a memory. A new means of depiction was required. All in all, this subject matter has allowed her to explore many of the pertinent matters which concern her as a painter.