Sojourn(al)
Two artists from either side of the Irish Sea, myself and Éilis Ní Fhaoláin took our studio exchange as the beginning of a story line by artists at Backwater Artist’s Group, Cork and Road Studios. The result of this was our “visual fact-finding mission” culminating in a vibrant pop up show at Road Studios.
This was a self - created residency which came about from casually drooping by at the Backwater studios and chatting to the organisers there. I had initially applied for a residency space via the usual application route. Having learnt that the waiting list was years long I was aked if I would like to invite one of their artists to do a studio exchange for one month. Of course I would! And this is where I was perfectly matched with artist Éilis Ní Fhaoláin who’s family and friends generously hosted me throughout my time in Cork.
Studio Exchange
Backwater Artists Studios, Cork + Road Studios, Liverpool
Cairs Kingdom, Gouache on paper A3
Studio Works In Progress:
Éilis and I didn’t really have a plan as such, we decided to allow residency time to evolve and explore and see where it led us individually. There was no sharing of our work progress whist we were in our studios, but we decided it would be fun to make a joint exhibition at the end. If I was to define how this was ‘fun’, it was because we made the entire contents of our exhibition fold up into our travel bags which fitted the hand-luggage restrictions implemented by Ryan Air. This meant we could pull off a true ‘no expenses’ show albeit a few bottles of wine, so a big win over Ryan Airs fees.
Sometimes it is just nice to feel you are winning in life.
The World Is Full Of Words, Sketch book A3