16 Woodquay, 7WGW+8V
Burt Pidgin
Burt Pidgin was born of that sludge found in the mid-land bogs of Ireland. Graduating from Limerick School of Art and Design with a BA in Printmaking and Contemporary Practice, Burt is no longer proficient in anything print or even contemporary. After this exploration into the schooled arts, Burt ventured to Vancouver, where he bluffed his way into being an artist production assistant for a few years before returning to Ireland. Where he now works out of La Cathedral Studios in Dublin.
It’s been 18 months since Burt sipped on a pint with their friends. Longing to worship at the altar of Dionysus, once again. The absence and presence of human interaction is a near-constant wavering thought. It is in this flux that we find ‘The Inability to Properly Convey a Point’. Burt uses portraiture as a means of storytelling. Each portrait holds the treachery of images. A congruence of personal and third part narratives. Themes of failure, longing and trickery are played out in a swashbuckle of vibrant colouring.
The underlying thesis within the show is the representation of idols. Specific interest is placed upon the very human instinct of idol fabrication. The fundamental faults in the ability to recollect and retell stories. The ongoing cycle of identity narrativization. Stories we tell ourselves about ourselves. The creation and modelling of idols that we inhabit. However, something is always obtuse. Askew.
As we interoperate our past selves through the lens of our present, we determine which of our past selves we were. In turn, new idols are constructed. This takes the form of sculptures, paintings, and mixed media as a means of communication. Shaping their own story between viewer and artist. Personal, singular. Familiar but wrong.
It’s just a real pity Burt can’t tell a story to save their life.
It comes in Waves, 2021, oil piant, oil pastel on board.
Kevin Judge
Kevin Judge is an artist from Dublin, Ireland. Since graduating from NCAD in 2018 with a BA in Fine Art, he has been making paintings from his studio in Dublin and exhibiting work across Ireland. His work often deals with contemporary issues through traditional figurative painting techniques and primarily concerns self-portraiture whilst creating surreal often humorous scenes.
Laura Wade
Laura Wade is an Irish artist, originally from Cork City, is now residing in Mayo in the North West of Ireland. She spent the last few years in West Cork, an area that profoundly shaped her creative path. However she was pleased to be drawn back north as she had studied in Galway/Mayo IT. At GMIT’s Centre for Creative Arts & Media, she specialised in printmaking, a process that has always been the root of her artistic practice. In 2014, graduating with a first class honours, she received an academic achievement award and 12 month bursary with Cork Printmakers.
Over the last few years, Laura has primarily worked in the medium of brush and ink on paper while incorporating other image making ways such as collage, photography and mixed media techniques. The pinhole texture that appear in her works on paper are another form of mark making, adding intrigue and refer to something other. These minute pinholes often incite wonder while geometric overlays and lines contrast with the soft fluidity of ink marks giving the viewer a sense of something unfolding. Her visual language delves into our sense of place and how we connect to our surroundings.
Her current body of work utilizies the photography process of cyanotype to explore her new surrounds in Co. Mayo. Developing imagery by blending the digital and the cyanotype printing process has an immediacy and tactile quality that conforms to the artists way of experiencing the landscape. Intrigued by the layer and lore of the land, the lone May bush recurs throughout her series ‘Meeting Place’. This ongoing body of work documents her musings and meanderings while contemplating connection to place.
Circuit Arts Festival 