With Easter upon us it is perhaps timely to dwell on a painting, which not only resonates with the season, but also articulates the horror that continues to unfold in the Middle East and Ukraine. This is Marc Chagall’s ‘Golgotha’ of 1912, perhaps the most luminous, prismatic painting of the crucifixion in art history. It differs from all others in its non-literal transformation of the biblical scene: in place of an adult Christ is a blue child, ‘crucified’ on the arc of an emerald green sky. It is a deeply mysterious vision, one that speaks more, perhaps, of resurrection, rebirth and renewal, than death. And yet it also invites a darker interpretation, one more prescient to our times: that of the child of the Middle East, the child of Ukraine, crucified by war.

Chagall, a Russian Jew, was not one to be confined by conventions, whether they were pictorial, religious or otherwise. As a Jew, images were largely proscribed, and symbolic Christian images, unthinkable. In painting the crucifixion, the young artist from Vitebsk (Belarus) charted a course that broke completely with Jewish cultural norms. When, later in life, he was invited by the newly formed state of Israel to decorate the interior of the Knesset (the Israeli parliament), it came with a caveat: there was to be no Christian imagery, a condition Chagall quietly ignored. It wasn’t that he was pro-Christian, it was the fact that the figure of Christ was a part of his personal metaphoric language, a visual lexicon of images which sought to transcend politics and religion, in its depiction of love, suffering, beauty and eternity.

There is no doubt that his ‘Golgotha’ of 1912 is all four of these things. Chagall had a mysterious ability to evoke the eternal in everything he touched. The arc of the child’s open mouth is echoed by the large circle inscribed in the sky behind him, and by the prismatic arcs in the luminous red ground below. The line rhymes and echo shapes, employed throughout, enable everything to visually resound; nothing is static, everything is alive. In employing a programme of prismatic arcs and intersecting spheres, Chagall achieved a magical unity, at once terrifying in its imagery and beautiful in its manifestation. The result is an image which echoes forever in the mind. 

In 2005, I wrote several poems which dreamt themselves, in part, out of Chagall’s painting. One of these was called ‘Blinded Lethe’ (Lethe was a river of the Greek underworld, which invited oblivion): “I am breathless with discovery / And wounded by the glare / Of the gored and shrapnelled child / Bronze fists of anger immeasurable / A wing of leaden death / You make me transparent  / With your pain / Now I understand Christ / Whose limbs flared and shone / Like mirrors / Like glass / Which shattered and fell / In a rain of transcending passion / Upon the fields / Of blinded Lethe / Who, feeling glass soft as snow / Looked up in astonishment / At the son of man.”

The ‘child’ referenced in this poem occurs periodically in my work, and could be thought of as an archetype for the ‘wounded child.’ The poem itself is driven by an incandescent (and impotent) rage at the power-hungry architects of war, with the ‘wounded child’ being their ever-constant victim. The most recent atrocity – the bombing of a school in Iran – resonates Chagall’s ‘Golgotha’ one hundred times over. By saying this I do not mean to diminish such a heart-numbing loss of so many children to a neat line in an article, but to indicate that art is a quivering limb of life, that it is called to address the most urgent questions of our existence.

That is what archetypes are for, and his employment of them is partly why Chagall’s work is so enduring. His mysterious transformation of the archetype in ‘Golgotha,’ its resounding play of arcs and spheres, its deep, prismatic colour, is why I return to it again and again, every Easter; not as a window into a religious rite, but as a dark, pulsing emblem of suffering, as a reminder of art’s purpose, of its empathic power.

Chagall himself said of this painting, in a conversation with Franz Meyer: “Strictly speaking, there was only a blue child in the air. The Cross was of less interest to me.” The vision he had – palpable, non-verbal, mysterious – was everything. That is the truly creative space: the crucible in which spiritual treasures are born.

Light, daylight, shadow; the richness of the hues, the softness of the shades. What, I often wonder, are we missing when we switch on an electric light, a screen? The microtones, the half-lights, what DaVinci called ‘earth light,’ the mysterious quality of sunlight falling upon a living thing, animating it, responding to its living pores, its pigmentation, the iridescence leant to it by its cells. Or the light of dawn streaming through frosted glass like silver filigreed with gold, imbuing everything it touches, like King Midas, with a mysterious golden hue. And then even the shadows come alive, their edges as soft as DaVinci’s sfumato, the smokey way he drew.

Electric light cuts, makes the shadows sharp, evens out the room.

Sunlight folds in like a sigh, rolls shadows out like living things, softens space.

I’m not a Luddite, I am not pining for a time before electricity. But as a painter, I’m now feeling a difference between the lights on in the studio and the natural grace of the skylight, between the electric bulb on in the bathroom in the morning, and the predawn glow filtering through the frosted glass.

There is poetry in fluctuation, in there being nothing else on but the play of the sun with the atmosphere, the dance of the light with the clouds. I am thinking now of Monet’s waterlilies in Musee de l’Orangerie, the magnificent semi-circular paintings only lit by skylights. You sit and watch as the light swells and fades and swells again, the colours in the paintings constantly changing, brightening and darkening like embers in a fire.

Sunlight is grace.

The nadir of our visual culture’s love affair with conceptualism is, for me, Martin Creed’s ‘Work No. 227 The Lights Going On and Off’ (2000). The ‘work’ consists of two electric lights going on and off every five seconds in a room. The regularity, the coldness, the poverty of vision and experience. The irony, of course, that there is no light in this ‘work,’ only darkness, emptiness, sterility. A statement? Please spare me such statements, I’m looking for transformation.

The opposite end of the scale, for me, is Odd Nerdrum’s painting, ‘Dawn,’ from 1989. Like in some surreal ballet, the four, near-identical seated figures have their faces raised to the sky, their mouths open, eyes closed, in a blind love song to the sun, which is breasting the mountains behind. They are at one with the mountain-scape, their bodies aglow with a sunlit radiance (a stage trick, as the dawn is behind them, not in front).  The richness of this painting is something to behold, a testament to the truism that there are no new subjects, only fresh expressions of them.

Another, perhaps more iconic example, is Vermeer’s ‘Woman Holding a Balance’ from 1662. Light pours in from a high window, delicately catching the gold of the balance, the paleness of the woman’s hand, her face and gown. This is why the world loves Vermeer: because he connects natural light to the figure in perfect, ordinary harmony, because he transforms oil into light. We feel the stillness of the moment, the silence of the transformation, and are more at peace for it.

I am writing this on a laptop, the screen radiating out at me. It is not, I know, good for the eyes, but I am grateful for it, writing is an addiction. At the same time I cannot help thinking of my childhood spent in an old farm house in the Australian bush. No computers or iPhones, of course, and for years we had no television. No screens at all. We rose with the dawn. At night we lit a fire, read books. You could hear the frogs croaking in the nearby dam, the wind rustling the trees, the wooden walls creaking. Outside the stars shone with a rare, diamond-studded brilliance. The cosmos was so vast, so mysterious, an intoxication of fire-laced distances beyond human measure.

Street lights cut out the beauty of the night sky.

But where would we be without street light? Our civilisation is founded on this electric pulse, this illumination, this connectivity of information and purpose. Somehow it keeps all the raw wildness at bay. For we are only one power outage away from the Middle Ages. This is our conundrum, a measure of our fragility. 

How did I even begin thinking about this? For several years I have been imagining scenes in the 16th century studio of Pieter Bruegel, for a novel. Painters at that time were wholly dependent on natural light, could only really work in the spring and summer. Perhaps they could draw in the colder months, by the light of oil lamps and candelabra, but such light was hardly sufficient for painting. The studio was set up in such a way as to make the most of north-facing windows, north-facing, as it offered the most stable, unchanging illumination throughout the day.

Life had a different rhythm, a slower, softer vibration.

I am not pining for a time before electricity. I am a grumpy mess without a hot shower. But we have the luxury of choosing: to at times, turn things off, tune our eyes to the shadows, to a softer vibration, to a silence that truly connects.

I feel the enchantment of many; some I’ve managed to collect, others, I dream of doing so. A small Michael McSwiney lights my morning, its infinitesimal shifts between turquoise, silver and amber on a crumbling bed of tar, evoking a world. The etchings of Roman Sustov also hover in my vision: steam punk apparitions which conjure stories beyond words. I would love a Tom Climent: those searing crystalline peaks breathing a purity of colour, which surely refracts the colours of the artist’s soul. I could also live well with a work by Carol Hodder, whose Turneresque paintings bloom fire and light out of sumptuous impasto. They are the magicians who spark my own fire. None of it comes with ease: the artist must dig, must enter the flow, is not content until a certain feeling is recognised, a certain arrangement felt.

Inchoate and inexplicable is the world of art; a language of substances and non-verbal nuances, which draw us without us knowing why. The artist plays a chord upon the hinterland, between what is known and unknown. One chord beckons another, the artist drawn and enchanted, curious and enlivened. What is this form, this colour, this feeling?

When it comes to figuration, one enters a stage, where the actors are all frozen mid flight. The best of the New Masters conjure their figures with as much bravura, presence and subtlety as the old, painting archetypes, respelling ancient stories, providing continuity in the Grand Tradition. Jannik Hosel from Germany, the Italians: Arrivabene, Sicoldr, Samori; Kaja Norum in Norway, Ireland’s own Molly Judd. They are but a few who come to mind, and each of them brilliant in their way. They call to the conjurer in me, to the story teller, a very different persona to the intuitive forger of colour-scapes.

We are all feeling our way, and autumn is a good time to trust in our own instincts, to turn off the screens, to awaken to our own inner world. There is an occasional tapping on the roof of my new studio, an inquisitive bird, I imagine, pecking at the roof tiles. I’ve heard them in the trees, pecking at wood, no doubt looking for insects. It is a reminder to tap, with whatever tools we have, on the roof of our consciousness, with curiosity and openness. Perhaps a window will open? Or an echo will inspire?

Words can be slow to come, and that is fine. The works of so many painters drift over me, each of them focused, each of them possessed with the courage to evoke the mystery. All I can do today is let them drift. My new studio awaits, and I wonder what might be conjured in that space? Thoughts of the new studio beckon memories of another, the student studio at the Nerdrum School in Norway, where I studied for two months in 2017. Below are diary entries from August 15 and 16 of that year:

“‘Tis a cold and stormy night by the north sea. I can feel the walls shaking in the wind. Masterpieces lurk in the darkness below, oblivious to the storm. How quickly they have become objects to navigate on the way to elsewhere.”

“The morning after the storm the skies are washed clear as a white milky blue. The grasses are heavy with the remnants of frost and the rocks sit like seals which have basked in the sun, the moon, the waves and the ice for millennia. Roedvik Gaard is the name of this place, fingers of stone trailing into the sea, knuckles of sandstone and marble littering the shore. And further back a tower, tucked into the trees. There a dreamer wanders, from canvas to canvas, from shadow to shadow, from light to light.”

The dreamer, in that case, was the master, Odd Nerdrum, who has inspired and guided many of the figurative painters mentioned above. But it is also, by extension, every artist and every person who dreams and creates, in whatever space they can carve out. So, to the breaches, to the roof tops: it is time to tap like the bird, to listen, to tap again.

Her mouth is a fish, her cheek a stingray. One octopus nets her fish-and-otter-hair, another comprises her shoulder, whilst an eel forms her neck and a pearl earring dangles from her ear-shell. Who is she? A painting by a surrealist, you might think, someone modern or contemporary? Perhaps Dali or Magritte?  In fact, the image is much older, its title, ‘Water,’ painted in 1566 by the Milanese artist, Giuseppe Arcimboldo (1527-1593).

Arcimboldo is a name that few, perhaps, will know. And yet his unique and startling images must have been a hit at the Habsburg court, where he served as court painter to three successive emperors. Indeed, it was the case; so much so, that in 1590, Rudolf II commissioned Arcimboldo to paint him as Vertumnus, the Roman god of the seasons. Ever obliging, Rudolf’s nose became a pear, his cheeks, apples, his forehead, a pumpkin. Some may have thought the completed portrait an improvement, that the sickly emperor had never looked so well. The Emperor, who loved the works of Bosch and Bruegel, must have been delighted.

Was Arcimboldo’s work more than just a curiosity of composites, a game of illusion? Or did it also comprise a satirical edge? Contrary to what one might think, it was not created in a vacuum. The works of Hieronymus Bosch, Pieter Bruegel, Jan Mandijn and their ilk would have been known to the Italian painter. Hybrid creatures and composite forms were popular in Netherlandish culture, and the trade in images via engravings, ensured that well connected artists, such as Arcimboldo, were well aware of the shape-shifting currents of the north.

Even if Arcimboldo’s composite portraits were no more than curiosities, however, the impulse to make one form out of others triggers inevitable thoughts about the interconnectedness of life. Quite literally, ‘we are what we eat,’ but also, more profoundly, that all forms in the cycle of birth and death, are ultimately interchangeable. Rudolf II may have had a unique view on this, as he dabbled in alchemy, and was certainly alive to the mysteries of metamorphosis.

Arcimboldo’s work is also not lost on the painters of today, and has special significance for the contemporary Italian master, also from Milan, Agostino Arrivabene. I have written about Arrivabene before; in his painterly world, faces and bodies are interpenetrated by and submerged in, organic matter: green shoots, flowers, mycelium, blood vessels, molluscs and coral. Penetration, decomposition and metamorphosis are the keynotes of Arrivabene’s visual language. 

In a work titled ‘L’erbario. Omaggio alla primavera di Giuseppe Arcimboldo’ (The Herbarium. Homage to Spring, by Giuseppe Arcimboldo), 2025, Arrivabene re-invents Arcimboldo’s composite personification of Spring within his own fantastic idiom and lexicon. It is a homage Arrivabene has arrived at naturally and forms part of a series of like-paintings, exhibited this year at the Primo Marella Gallery, in Lugano, Switzerland. It is worth here quoting the artist, as his commentary on the work is quite profound:

“If one were to seek in modern painting an arcane awakening of Arcimboldo – far from any postmodern caricature or mannerist jest–one would need to turn to this nocturnal figure, where the flower is not ornament but oracle, flesh and the very tongue of metamorphosis. I’ve composed, or rather recomposed, the iconography of Arcimboldo’s Primavera–today housed in the Louvre–not as pastime or variation, but as profound infraction, as an act of melancholic clairvoyance.” (@primomarellagallery)

There are many things one can say about Arrivabene’s commentary, and the series of related paintings. Firstly, we are in no doubt here that Arrivabene’s work is far more than a curiosity. His figures and faces are never composites, but interpenetrated beings, out of, and through which, grow, bloom and die a myriad of vegetal and boreal forms. His works titled ‘Il Foliato’, ‘La Fiorita,’ and ‘Homo Salvatico in plenilunio,’ 2025, breathe autumnal and wintry decay, the bodies and faces exploding with stems, roots, vessels, curling leaves and withering flowers. Arrivabene transcends Arcimboldo, absorbs the Renaissance painter into his own inner library of references, whilst nodding to him as a forebear, a link in the chain of symbol and consciousness. This is, as Arrivabene says, “profound infracture,” an incisive term for the awakening of one awareness within another. It is a timely phrase, backed up by powerfully grounded painting, at a time when many new realists appropriate the surface of past images without interrogating their core.  

What, one wonders, would Rudolf II have thought of the contemporary Milanese painter? An emperor enamoured of the arts, who dabbled in alchemy and sought, like all alchemists for the ‘materia prima,’ the prized substance which forever eluded the alchemists’ vials. I believe he would have been riveted, would have felt Arrivabene on the cusp of some great secret, a secret whispered, however, to the eyes alone.

I can just see him there in his gallery, where he was said to gaze at a single work for hours, stroking his cat, roaring for something to ease his unruly chest, and gazing at Arcimboldo’s Primavera, as, flower by flower, it faded to become the painter’s personification of Autumn, and finally his painting of Winter. Little did he know that out of that final darkness Arrivabene’s vision would one day be born.

A living line, trembling with energy. The feeling which charges the hand: a poignant burst, guiding the etching needle, twisting, erupting, flicking and flowing, etching death into a copper plate. Francisco Goya’s series of etchings, ‘The Disasters of War’ (1810-1820), is an arguably unequaled record of cruelty, in the medium of print. Even today, with the media’s  descriptions and visuals of atrocities in Ukraine and Gaza, Goya’s imagery stands out. It also resonates with the present, reminds us that, when it comes to war, things do not fundamentally change: the litany of destruction, rape, pillage, torture, execution, mass burial, repression and famine was as true for Goya in the 19th century, as it is for people in Gaza and Ukraine in the 21st.

The most fundamental difference between the periods is, of course, technology, and the rise of journalism as a profession. In 1808, with Napoleon at the gates of Spain, there were no reporters with flashing cameras, no film crews tracking cannon fire. Instead, there were artists. Following the siege of Zaragoza by Napoleon’s armies, field marshal, José de Palafox summoned a number of painters, including Goya, to bear witness to the devastated city and the resilience of its inhabitants. 

Goya’s response, over the ensuing years, was an unprecedented series of 85 etchings, which look unflinchingly at the horrors of war. The series stood out even then, as Goya, unlike the majority, did not romanticise or glorify the struggle against Napoleon, nor did he look away from the ensuing repression by the Spanish monarchy. His sole guide was truth itself, in all its stark, satirical, and sarcastic nakedness. Upon this dark journey, however, truth was also given up for dead, as articulated in print No. 79, ‘Truth has Died’. It is a powerful narrative, the death of truth, and resonates today as critically as at any other time in history. 

When governments propagate large scale falsehoods, such as Israel’s denial that there is famine in Gaza, Russia’s denial that Ukraine is a nation, or the Trump Administration’s insistence that vaccines are bad and climate change, a hoax, then whole nations of people are pressured to abandon the truth. And when that is gone there is only propaganda and dominion. The truth, at this point, becomes dangerous; it certainly was for Goya, who chose not to publish ‘The Disasters of War’ in his own lifetime. 

There is a paradox in Goya’s ‘Truth has Died,’ however, for in giving life to the image, he stands for that which he proclaims allegorically dead. This can be said for the entire Disasters of War series: through interrogating the terrors of violence and hunger, he paradoxically stands for life and abundance. His mastery of line and composition, his fidelity to what he sees, the feeling with which he describes every cluster of bodies, breathes with energy and life. That is the poignancy of any great work, which deals with a devastating truth. How something can be both great and horrific, how it can be both timeless art and a mirror of its time; the paradox, the poignancy gives it all the more weight, a magnetising, yet devastating gravity.

Bodies dismembered, mutilated, garrotted; bodies stripped, abandoned, thrown into a pit; men impaled, shot, castrated and hung; women pleading with would-be rapists, women knifing soldiers in the back; townsfolk lynching captured soldiers, soldiers with bayonets raised, to execute townsfolk. 

Goya is as unrelenting in his portrayal, as he is classical in his delivery. Throughout the series one becomes aware of the influence of Rembrandt, Rubens, Piranesi, Caravaggio. Echoes of Rubens’ dramatic clusters of bodies, of Rembrandt’s brilliant chiaroscuro, of Piranesi’s mysterious arches, of Caravaggio’s violent, tilting planes, abound in the Disasters of War. What unfolds is as much a profound act of witness as a master class in the art of composition.

A similar endeavour today might be seen as redundant. Thousands of images roll across our screens, given perhaps only a cursory look. Images of famine and mutilation, particularly involving children, are the most difficult to view. A disparity between our screens and reality allows us to scroll on; understandably we would rather not look. Certainly for Goya, the Disasters of War was not a commercial enterprise; who, indeed, would want such images on their wall? They would find their place, ultimately, in a state institution, the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando, to become the defining record of the Peninsular War, and beyond that, a timeless indictment against human violence. 

Art, it must be said, changes nothing, as the cycle of power and dominion, rolls on. And yet it changes everything; for Goya’s act is an act of transmission: of empathy, irony and rage; of a living line, a trembling impression, a human trace; of a compendium of human knowledge, of a fire storm of courage. 

Centuries on, Goya’s etchings still enliven and provoke, challenging artists today to be brave, to commit truth to canvas, etching plate, memory chip. It is part of the call of art, to rise to the moment; to answer the question posed by T.S. Eliot: “do I dare disturb the universe?”

At the start of a sultry August the West Cork arts scene is brimming with life. Cnoc Bui, in Union Hall, is once more hosting West Cork Creates, Working Artist Studios, in Ballydehob, boasts a fabulous members exhibition, and the Blue House gallery, in Schull, is presenting a diverse show of gallery artists’ work. Meanwhile Uillin, in Skibbereen, is showcasing a selection of work from the Crawford Gallery, titled Grá, whilst Gallery Asna, in Clonakilty, is once again hosting Cork Potters. Painting, ceramics, sculpture, printmaking, photography; it’s all in the mix, and a proliferation of group shows means that more artists are represented across the region than at any other time of year.

August is, thus, a great time for visiting galleries. It is, however, perhaps not the best time for producing lithographs. Litho what? Most people will be familiar with offset printing. Before the digital age, this was (and largely still is) the mainstay of the publishing industry, the paper you are reading being a classic product of this process. In a nutshell, offset printing is enabled through photo-plate lithography, which in turn is derived from the principles of stone lithography. And stone lithography is what I wish to discuss, for August is also craft month, and it’s time to get technical.

Firstly, a disclaimer; stone lithography is a dark art. Truly. Trying to explain it to the uninitiated (99.9 percent of people) is like trying to explain to a Sami person, in the northern tundra, how a caterpillar turns into a butterfly. We can describe some things, of course; the before and after. But what happens within the cocoon leaves most of us speechless. So, deep breath, and here goes.

To begin with, as the name suggests, one draws on a slab of graded, level limestone. This is very primal, stone age even. And so far you’re with me, excellent.

Then, and here’s where things get wooly, the lithographer-mage treats the stone with varying mixes of gum arabic and nitric acid. Some words may be said, some prayers, even. The stone is left alone for a while to absorb both prayers and chemicals. When the lithographer-mage returns, perhaps a day later, they may decide to ‘proof’ the stone. This is a way of checking that the treatment (and the prayers) have worked. 

Firstly the drawing is removed from the stone with white spirits. Yes, that’s right, sayonara stone age drawing! If all has gone well, however, an x-ray-like image remains ‘lit’ in the stone, as if the spirit of the drawing remained whilst its body departed. Following this cathartic moment, a greasy substance called asphaltum is rubbed into the ghost-image, after which the previously applied layers of gum arabic are washed away with a sponge.

Now for the ink. The lithographer rolls up black proofing ink, dampens the stone with water, using a sponge, then rolls the ink onto the stone. The stone, like a thirsty camel in the desert, must stay ‘hydrated’ at this point, especially when being rolled with ink. Simply put, the damp areas repel the ink, whilst the previously drawn and treated areas, attract it. 

Now, summertime, when the sun comes slanting in, warming the studio, is not the best time to do this, as I found out at Cork Printmakers, one simmering July afternoon. Keeping the stone sufficiently damp, between passes with the roller, is a race, in such conditions, against the elements. But all going well, after inking, the ghost image should once more appear as it was originally drawn.

After all this, and here is where it truly becomes a dark art, the printmaker-mage goes through the gum arabic process all over again. This is to ensure the ‘stability’ of the image for a large print run. Following another period of absorption, the image is once again inked up and printed using a litho press, keeping the stone damp all the while.

So, given the time-consuming, laborious process, why are artists today attracted to stone lithography? Firstly, printmakers by their very nature, enjoy discovering new processes, new ways to make an image magically appear out of the ether (or, in this case, the stone). They also enjoy the labour. In a fast, digital age, stone lithography is a way of slowing down, of stilling time. Then there is the drawing process itself: limestone is one of the most beautiful surfaces an artist can draw on, whilst the richness of the printing inks are unparalleled. Artists have, additionally, often collaborated with master lithographers, thus bypassing the more elusive, time-consuming and alchemical aspects of the process. Virtually every major artist who has ever produced an ‘artist book,’ from Miro to Matisse, has engaged with specialist studios in this way. Quite simply, it is a beautiful, limited edition means of reproduction.

Hopefully you are now looking at these printed words in a different way; the secrets that enabled their eventual journey to newsprint originated in an alchemist’s laboratory and a lithographer’s stone. Keeping the art alive are the stone whisperers, the copper kabbalists; pilgrims of print, ever magnetised by the mysterious elements of the earth and the riches they can bring.

A big shout-out to Dominic Fee, master lithographer, at Cork Printmakers, for his expertise and stone midwifery. In other news, the Clonakilty Arts Centre will be holding a ‘Save our Arts Centre’ rally on August 2, 2pm at Asna Square, the previous having been cancelled due to rain. I also must make a correction to last month’s column: I erroneously stated, that in West Cork, only Gallery Asna | Clonakilty Community Arts Centre, and Uillin curate year-round exhibition programmes. Working Artist Studios have been doing so in various locations since 2000. That’s some achievement; hats off to Paul, Marie and their team.

In March I wrote a column encouraging people to take part in a public consultation process, for a project aimed at reviving a neglected part of Clonakilty. The public consultation was to inform an Integrated Urban Strategy (IUS) for Kent Street (the street the library is on), identifying how public spaces and council-owned buildings could be better used for the benefit of the community. Now that the process is complete and the IUS written, it is time to reflect on the results and on the process itself. What were the wins, and for whom? Was the process successful? Did it capture and reflect the needs of the community? 

In order to answer some of these questions, let us first look at the public engagement strategy itself and what it yielded. The centrepiece of this strategy was a well-researched and structured survey, designed to invite a broad, collective imagining of the street and what it could become. On the downside, there was only a two-week window in March for people in the community to become aware of it and respond. Even so, 319 survey responses were received. In section one of the survey, respondents were asked to identify key indicators for the project’s future success. The top three were: ‘Kent St. is safe and vibrant day and night’ (76pc), ‘Restored buildings have a community use’ (74pc), ‘There are events and community gatherings’ (70pc). When asked to describe reasons for the project’s success in their own words, the most repeated themes were: it has become a cultural and artistic hub, it reflects strong community engagement, spaces are inclusive, historical, beautiful and serve many purposes: arts, markets, events, workshops, social spaces, green spaces, and more. 

Developing this further, in section three of the survey, respondents were asked: “what uses do you imagine might work in Kent Street for the benefit of the town?” nine per cent listed offices, 12pc childcare, 27pc retail, 29pc housing, 29pc co-working space, 30pc healthcare, 30pc education facility, 51pc green space, 57pc cafe / restaurant, 63pc music venue, 70pc performance space, 72pc community centre.

From these statistics we begin to see a very strong consensus for community infrastructure. A second part of the public engagement strategy allowed for written submissions. The newly-formed Clonakilty Cultural Centre Action Group submitted a 48-page proposal for a multi-site cultural centre, which would include a craft market, theatre, gallery, studios, meeting spaces, teaching spaces, museum, art and heritage library, cafe and garden. Backing this proposal were 10 key organisations: Clonakilty Community Resource Centre, Clonakilty Community Arts Centre, Geata Arts, Clonakilty Youth Orchestra, Clonakilty Community College, West Cork Regional Museum, Tidy Towns, The Bike Circus, Tadgh an Asna Players and West Cork Development Partnership. 

Given the strong consensus above, one might feel confident of a very strong community-facility-oriented outcome. So, what exactly has been proposed? Ten weeks after the first public meeting, attendees at the last meeting (June 4) were finally given the big reveal.

Firstly, a library upgrade. There has been broad consensus for this generally: so far, so good. The council offices above the library would, however, need to be relocated for this to occur; this we will return to.

Now, what of the empty/eligible buildings, the available spaces so urgently needed for community use? 

Disconcertingly, No. 8 Kent St. and the council yard are slated for housing, whilst the old town hall remains council offices. I say, ‘disconcertingly’ as this outcome does not reflect the results of the public survey, the round-table discussions (which took place in the second public meeting) or the written community submissions. Housing, whilst needed in the town, is ranked in the bottom five out of 11, of potential uses identified in the survey, whilst offices are ranked at the very bottom. In terms of written submissions, the Cultural Centre Action Group laid out a vision for a craft market and gardens surrounded by artist workshops, community meeting spaces, performance and exhibition space. Through the round-table discussions, housing was put forward in only one of the six tables. So why, against this backdrop, has No. 8 and the council yard been earmarked for housing, and the old town hall for offices? Clearly this was not a community-led decision.

Moving on to the fire station site, and the seating area next to the Collins mural: this site has been categorised as ‘Mixed: civic offices use / cultural spaces / public spaces.’ The fire station corner has been envisaged as ‘Civic Square’. This would appear to be a partial win for the community: perhaps a small theatre and gallery, perhaps some studios and a community teaching space or meeting space, if there’s room. 

Now you will recall that the council offices above the library would need to be relocated to accommodate a library upgrade. Questioned about this during the last meeting, the attendees were encouraged to envisage new cultural spaces with council offices on the top floor. We might have to forego the studios in that case, perhaps the meeting spaces as well.

It is important at this point to reflect on where the funding for this public consultation is coming from. €200,000 was granted to Cork County Council under the THRIVE scheme in May 2024, to commission an integrated urban strategy for Kent Street. THRIVE (Town Centre First Heritage Revival Scheme) was set up to help communities identify and repurpose public owned buildings for community use. 

The central principle of THRIVE is that projects are community-led and citizen-centred. In order to properly enable this process the THRIVE guidelines stipulate the adoption of the Town Centre First Framework through the formation of a Town Team; this is a group made up of individuals representing a cross section of the community. It ensures the community has a voice at the table, enabling an effective communication channel between community groups, the consultancy team and a council steering group. An example of this in action is the Neighbourhood Team that was formed for the Shandon THRIVE project in Cork City. 

The Town Centre First Framework was not implemented for the Kent St. THRIVE public consultation. 

Because of this omission there has been no meaningful dialogue between community groups, the business community and the council. Such dialogue is key to ensuring the best outcome for the community, via meaningful negotiation. And negotiation is important going forward, as it builds confidence between all parties.

Because of the communication gap, attendees were blind-sided during the last meeting by a presentation outlining the council’s vision for a ‘Civic Centre’, in which council offices are paramount. Between March and June there had been no indication that the council had a vision at all; no conversation had taken place. Why? Because there was no Town Team to contact, no Town Centre First Framework protocol through which to have that conversation. 

If there had been, the final meeting may have panned out differently. Instead of giving the attendees a presentation on civic centres and how important the council is, there may have been a reflection on the tireless work community groups do to provide services for the town; a reflection on the critical deficit of community and cultural infrastructure, a demonstration on how the ‘master plan’ would address that deficit. 

As a director of the (soon to be closed) Clonakilty Community Arts Centre and a member of the Cultural Centre Action Group my message to the council is that it is not too late. We are still at the beginning of the Kent St. process. Implement the Town Centre First Framework now; address the communication gap, invite the business community to the table, community groups to the table. Let us finally engage in a genuine discussion about how we can solve problems together.

This will be the last Summer of shows for Gallery Asna, however, as the Clonakilty Community Arts Centre must close its doors at the end of September. Notice has been given; the show is over. Not because the building has sold, but because it is apparently easier to sell empty. 

Needless to say, this will be a great loss for the town and for West Cork generally. Apart from Uillin, Gallery Asna is the only gallery in West Cork with a 12-month exhibition programme; 50 artists annually show on its walls and plinths, through group and solo exhibitions. 

Through June the gallery showed the rich and vibrant work of Eadaoin Harding Kemp, whilst coming up in July it will showcase new work by the prolific and inspiring Michael McSwiney. Following McSwiney, in August will be a group show by Cork Potters, and for Gallery Asna’s swan song in September, a combined show by Becky Hatchett, and newcomer Emma Scully. 

Over the past four years, following Covid, there has not been a break in Gallery Asna’s exhibition programme, a testament to the strong organisation and tireless work of CCAC’s CE Scheme staff, volunteers and board of directors. They deserve our thanks for contributing so critically to the vulnerable fabric of West Cork’s visual arts sector.

Gallery Asna is only one arm, however, of CCAC’s operations. Alongside the exhibition programme, many artists, writers and musicians run workshops and regular classes in the CCAC studios and shared teaching space. It is home to Clonakilty School of Painting, Clonakilty Artists Together, Clonakilty Community Dark Room and Creative Kids. In all, 90 students access classes in the centre every week, 60 of them children and teens, with students travelling from as far afield as Cork City and Schull.

There is a performance arm as well. CCAC hosts regular Open Mic sessions and annual Culture Night Events, and has, over the years, been the launch pad for other organisations and businesses, such as the Men’s Shed and The Green Dot. As a low-rent launch pad CCAC has demonstrated a strong argument for subsidised space, as a mechanism to propel start-ups forward. Ironically, however, it is not able to propel itself.

CCAC will always be grateful to the opportunity afforded to it by the building owner, who has kindly sheltered the organisation from the realities of the retail rental market over the last 12 years. Consistently low rent helped the arts centre grow and eventually flourish, and to help others do likewise. It has been an excellent example of ‘meanwhile use,’ at once preventing building dereliction and enabling social, creative and economic well-being. The reality now, however, is that CCAC, inoculated so long from the market, is ill-equipped to compete for new rental space. 

Cognisant of this fact, the arts centre has been lobbying Cork County Council for ‘meanwhile use’ of an empty council-owned building on Kent Street, since last December. Encouraged to engage in the Kent Street public consultation process in March, CCAC became the driving force behind the formation of a coalition of ten organisations and 20 individuals, all calling with one voice for a new cultural centre for the town, a centre that could meet multiple outstanding needs for multiple groups. The Kent Street public consultation is now complete (see the article on the facing page), however any resulting project there is years away. 

What CCAC is still asking for is ‘meanwhile use.’

According to one government document “meanwhile uses occupy vacant or under-utilised buildings on a temporary basis…as (for example) pop-up shops, street markets, exhibition spaces and other purposes in accordance with Town Centre First policies.” 

In a recent email to the SEO of the Western division of the council, I listed four reasons why CCAC should be granted ‘meanwhile use’ of the old fire station, now designated, through the Kent Street Integrated Urban Strategy (IUS), for cultural use. It would, I stated:“1. Save a long-standing community organisation and the many services it provides. 2. Win the community over to the council; this is good PR. 3. Provide a platform to promote the Kent Street IUS and the future community vision. 4. Demonstrate how successful the site could be for the community and the arts.” I would add to that list the following: 5. Prevent dereliction, pending future development. 6. Stimulate tourism and the economy. 7. Contribute positively to community mental health.

These points chime with a report authored in 2021 by Jude Sherry and Dr. Frank O’Connor, of anois.org, funded by the Heritage Council. The report addresses ‘meanwhile use’ as an intelligent answer to vacancy, dereliction, economic and social stagnation, identifying it as a bridge between vacancy and development, a stepping stone for start-ups and a stimulus for social and economic well-being. The authors identify a number of approaches, one of which speaks to CCAC’s request in particular: 

“Predevelopment: Large scale developments can take many years to come to full fruition and often take longer than anticipated. If integrated into development plans from the start, Meanwhile Use can offer the potential to decrease costs associated with vacancy, as well as increase usage of an area by maintaining or increasing footfall.”

In the Cultural Centre Action Group strategic vision, authored to feed into the Kent St. public consultation, Meanwhile Use was factored into Phase 1 of a four-phase plan for a multi-site cultural centre. It was factored in, in anticipation of CCAC losing its premises, and called for a temporary gallery in the fire station truck bay, and studios, meeting spaces and teaching spaces in No. 8 Kent Street.

What CCAC is unsure of, is if any of this has been listened to. The email response from the council was that: “no decision on meanwhile use has been made.” No context, no timeframe, no invitation for further discussion. It has been said through the grapevine that ‘meanwhile use’ is being actively looked into, and if this is true, there is cause for hope. But without constructive communication it is impossible for CCAC to know where it truly stands. ‘Meanwhile’ Clonakilty’s arts centre is out of time. CCAC will be holding a rally on July 19, 2pm, in Asna Square. There will be speeches, music, and of course an exhibition in the gallery. The aim is to fill the square with as many people as possible, to show the council, and the wider community how much this is needed. And of course, if there are other solutions out there the CCAC team is all ears: ccac2013@gmail.com

For too long groups in Clonakilty have attempted to get by in hotel rooms, cafes, dilapidated or inaccessible buildings, spaces that are too small or simply not fit for purpose. Indeed, if it were not for O’Donovan’s Hotel’s steadfast patronage half the groups in town would simply have nowhere to go. But as generous as O’Donovan’s and other property owners and businesses are, hotels, cafes, or run down commercial townhouses, are not fit-for-purpose cultural spaces; these spaces are made for guests, customers, stock rooms or warehousing, not for community meeting rooms, seminars, exhibitions or concerts. Continuing to ask such businesses to fill the ‘service gap’ also places undue pressure upon them, at a time when space is at a premium.

Meanwhile there are empty council-owned buildings and sites on Kent Street, and the newly formed Action Group has a plan on how to use them. 

In just two weeks a document has been written and formulated, outlining the cultural and civic sectors’ shared needs, along with a detailed four-phase plan to address them. The speed and agility of the Action Group’s formation and response is a testament to the depth of expertise, interconnectivity and outstanding need within Clonakilty. The necessity for such speed reflects a compressed public consultation period, outside of the group’s control. But the fact that it has delivered a considered, researched, four-phase plan for establishing a cultural centre, in such a time frame, should promote confidence within the council, in the ability of well-established community organisations to come together to manage council-owned assets. A preliminary draft of the 42-page document, titled: ‘CCCAG: Strategic Vision for Kent St 2025-2040’ has now been submitted to the consultancy team, hired by Cork County Council to formulate an Integrated Urban Strategy. 

The document (which will now continue to be refined, to be made ready for publication) is feeding into a public consultation process, which has included a public survey (over 200 surveys received and now closed) and which will include two more public meetings. The next of these will take place on April 29, 7-9pm at the Parish Hall on Western Road, Clonakilty. At this meeting the consultancy team will be presenting several potential projects to attendees, one of which will be chosen to be made ‘application ready’ for further capital funding opportunities. So if you care about the future of Kent Street, and wish to see new community spaces opened up, you are very much encouraged to attend. Let’s keep imagining and lobbying for this together, until that remarkable vision for a cultural centre is finally shaped by bricks, stone and mortar.

Landscape, social history, material and mythology dominate the concerns of all three exhibitions, albeit in very different ways. I will largely concentrate here on the work of Danish-Irish sculptor, Helle Helsner, which comprises ‘Core,’ before pivoting to briefly reflect on the brooding mythological images of MacCurtain and Doherty, and the surreal juxtapositions of Scully.

Helle Helsner’s work in bronze is instantly recognisable: the spindly, shadowy figures, cast using pre-historic processes, echo the haunting forms of the great Swiss sculptor, Alberto Giacometti. Like Giacometti, Helsner is concerned with primal expression and metaphysical reach; unlike him, she is predominantly concerned with the feminine aspect, with her and her material’s grounding in the landscape, and its attendant social history.

‘Core,’ beautifully curated by Stephen O’Connell, is the result of Helsner’s immersion in the disused mining landscape of Allihies. Helsner explained at the opening to the exhibition that her Allihies project was born of a desire to both explore the origins of her materials (bronze being composed of copper and tin), and the impact of their mining, both on the physical and social landscape. 

The mixed media drawings and bronze figures forged out of this immersion began with a process of research and photography around the old Allihies mines, which flowed into a period of drawing in the studio. Helsner relates that, “drawing is how I make sense of the world.” When she draws, she uses her non-dominant left hand to better “access the subconscious,” creating, in the words of Catherine Fehily (former head of the Crawford College), who opened the exhibition, “a sense of border crossing, of incongruous juxtapositions, where unexpected things collide.”

Both figures and drawings are filled with an open-ended curiosity. One always gets the feeling of opening rather than closing, as forms tease, in Fehily’s words “the cusp between figuration and abstraction.” Helsner describes her drawing process as a form of intuitive interior and exterior mapping. She relates how an old photograph of a weathered woman pounding ore, became a catalyst for recurring figure-like silhouettes through the series. Turned another way those silhouettes could just as easily read as animal skulls (a preoccupation of Helsner’s), an image of which meanders out of the drawing, ’Bléin Mná.’ The association engenders a polysemous double-act, underscoring both the interconnectedness of the landscape and the harsh realities faced by the community which once mined it.

From drawing, Helsner’s process flows into sculpture. In works such as ‘Cailleach’ we find the artist’s sculptural endeavour largely removed (but for its materiality) from the drawing-as-mapping Allihies project. The long-legged, yet truncated figures, with the merest suggestion of flattened breasts on the torso, are decidedly female. Wire armature pokes intriguingly out of the top of many, like the meandering lines of Helsner’s drawings, or like tree branches, absent from the landscape. Such forms have long haunted Helsner’s work and, here, transcend concerns of social impoverishment, stoicism and temporality. This is really where we get to the ‘core,’ where we hover on that intangible ‘something,’ and that is where words fall away.

In ‘A Secret Country’ the paintings of TP MacCurtain and the mono-prints of Mark Doherty explore a darker, more figurative mythological world. At times Bruegelesque, MacCurtain’s paintings evoke púcaí, liminal shape-changers, which stalk the Irish landscape, bringing its inhabitants either good or bad luck. The dark, fiery paintings of MacCurtain are offset by the whimsical lines of Doherty’s mono-prints. Though exploring similar themes, the prints are lighter; they float where MacCurtain’s paintings smoulder. ‘A Secret Country,’ is a fitting exhibition to open Geata Arts’ small exhibition space, a welcome addition to Clonakilty’s cultural landscape.

‘By the Light of the Burning Candle’ marks Emma Scully’s solo debut at The Loft Gallery. Whilst Scully’s themes resonate with those of MacCurtain and Doherty, her treatment across various media engages in a more metaphor-driven surreality, reminiscent (in her etchings and paintings) of the playful metamorphoses of Paul Harbutt and Phillip Guston. Scully’s etching, ’Dreamcatcher,’ shows hands attached to hairy, plant-like stalks which emerge from a pot, whilst another etching shows a disembodied arm sitting on a chair. Her photograph of a female figure crouched in ‘child pose’ in a river is more Baroque. Only the figure’s back is visible in an otherwise dark riverscape, suggesting a moment ‘between worlds.’

Rainer Maria Rilke once wrote of the “news which is always arriving out of silence.” The works from the exhibitions discussed are welcome news from ‘a secret country;’the type of ‘news’ that energises, that brings us closer to the mystery and joy of being.

Povey, who hales from Wales, is a master of composition. Of course, one might say that composition is at the heart of art’s mystery, therefore a great artist, it goes without saying, is a great composer. I have a formula which I have written about before and will state here again: Composition is the Source, Vibration is the Spirit, and Illusion is the Dream: the source of all power is composition, the spirit of all expression is vibration, and the dream of all reality is illusion. When all three elements are present to a high degree in an image, it will resonate and echo in the mind of the viewer for a very long time. And so it is with the work of Edward Povey. The compositions, the arrangements are exemplary: a sliver of black and white floor tiles, the placement of silverware on a face, the angle of an arm, the direction of a gaze: all of the elements in Povey’s works conjure a whole, closed-in, yet mysteriously clear matrix, made all the more powerful by the painter’s almost forensic, yet painterly, command of realistic form, his effective balance of tone, and his use of multi-perspectival planes.

‘Nabokov’s Window’ (2020) and ‘Congédiement’ (2022) are both rich examples of Povey’s compositional and painterly programme. Their aggregation of intriguing symbols, their formal arrangements, utilising two simultaneous perspectives (resonant of Cezanne), their employment of Raphael’s Verdaccio (green-red) palette, the mood of the figures, and their scale, present puzzles of meaning, which at the same time flow with non-verbal feeling and aesthetic power. This harmonic yet pensive quietude, underscored by a hidden, and one senses, painful, narrative is quintessential Povey. There is, one feels, a brokenness behind the red-rimmed eyes of his figures, made all the more stark by their juxtaposition with gleaming silverware and sparkling clean porcelain.

‘Nabokov’s Window’ is a square composition (200x200cm), roughly divided along a diagonal line between the bottom right corner and the upper left corner, with the shaved head, arm and shoulders of a woman in the left division, and a tableau of glasses, silverware, table and wallpaper in the right. The woman’s right hand reaches behind her head, snaking into the right division, and holds a piece of paper with a circle cut into it, possibly an allusion to the title. The woman’s left hand is circled protectively around her throat, her mouth is open, and her red-rimmed eyes stare, as if into her past, out of the picture plane. 

In the top left corner, above the woman’s forearm, we see a segment of a reproduction of a painting by Balthus (1908-2001), titled ‘Nude with a Cat,’ (1949) ‘pinned’ to the fictive wall. In the bottom left, between the woman’s arm and the edge we see a segment of black and white checkered floor tiles. The woman is presented front on, the table and floor slightly from above, and far too high in respect to the figure. This is Povey’s simultaneous double-perspective in action, a visual double-take which, because of the seamless harmony of all the shapes, leaves the viewer beguiled, but untroubled.

The Balthus reproduction offers, perhaps, a clue to the hidden narrative. ‘Nude with a Cat’ depicts a young, naked girl in an erotically charged pose, a stream of window light falling upon her. The card with the cut hole, held behind the woman’s head, is–as Povey himself points out–where she can’t see it; a window to a past, perhaps, she would rather not confront. Whatever that past is, there is a poignancy here between the youth and awakening of a bygone Balthus model and Povey’s pained middle-aged figure. There is also a contrast between Balthus’ innocent adolescent muse and Povey’s own subject, experienced and hurt by life’s travails. Povey is wise enough to leave the clues there; possibly he does not know more than this himself, the act of creation being a mysterious one, where one form evokes another, gradually forming a subconscious puzzle of resonances and allusions. There is, however, one more layer to Povey’s quotation of Balthus. The French-Swiss painter was also a great composer of forms, incorporating checkered tiles and carpet designs into his painterly tableaux. And so ‘Nabokov’s Window’ is perhaps, at once a narrative of hidden trauma and a tribute to a painter, whose compositional strategies Povey has clearly absorbed.

‘Congédiement,’ like ‘Nabokov’s Window,’ presents a close-up of a woman with a shaved head, a round table setting, and a background of patterned tiles. The division this time is between lower and upper halves, with the woman shown front on in the lower half, and the table and tiles shown from almost directly above, in the upper section. The simultaneous disjuncture and harmony of perspectives is arresting, giving the composition an immediate graphic power.

The woman’s left hand clutches at her deep V collar, pulling it aside to show her chest. Her right hand, held vertically straight, touches her head, which is bent horizontally to the viewer’s left. Between her fingers is a letter. Above the arc of her head and neck is the white round table, complete with tea cup and another letter (or part of the same one) soaking in a bowl. A strip of meat bleeds into the tea-filled saucer in which the tea cup is sitting. The strap of a bra angles out from under the table toward the top left corner.

Like ‘Nabokov’s Window’ it is an extraordinary painting, both full of density of form, and depth of emotion; its tonal pitch equals its emotional one, the white of her collar luminous against the black night of her dress, the slightly sickly reds and greens of her skin a nod to the white-greens of the table cloth and the dark red-browns of the tea and ground. The main clue to the hidden narrative is once more in the title; ‘congédiement’ means ‘dismissal’ in Italian. Povey offers more of an explanation here, stating that the letters are “from an Israeli songwriter, written to a young lover who was being dismissed.” That being said, the image holds a deep universality, able to conjure a myriad of possible narratives. To such a resonant painting the viewer might bring their own story, held as they are by the circularity of visual melodies and emotions, which echo for a long time in the mind. 

Edward Povey’s paintings hang in art collections in 27 countries. For more of his work visit www.edwardpovey.com, or on Instagram: edwardpovey

A junior student, who attends my art classes on the top floor of the Clonakilty Community Arts Centre (CCAC), recently posed the following question: “If art and culture are so important, as we’re taught in school, why are there so few places to view and make art?” We were discussing the uncertain future of the Clonakilty Community Arts Centre and its exhibiting space, Gallery Asna, in light of the news that the building in which it is housed is now up for sale. 

The question my 13-year-old student posed is both prescient and poignant, and shines a light on an inherent contradiction between society’s values and the market forces, which increasingly shape its spaces. It also underscores a deficit of services in the region (some of my students come from afar afield as Schull and Cork City) and the extreme vulnerability of the arts sector in West Cork as a whole.

I have often thought of the CCAC building as an old, creaking ship. It is old, but well-loved; its flaking, gradually crumbling shell propped up by easels, printing presses, paintings, sculptures, conversation, coffee, energy, music, laughter and life. It is more than its walls and the money that holds it together: it is community. Over fifty artists every year, from every demographic, benefit from Gallery Asna: students and amateurs, refugees and established locals, emerging artists and seasoned professionals; all fly the pennants of their dreams from the good ship CCAC’s mast. 

In addition to exhibiting artists, approximately eighty students come up and down the gangway weekly: to try out the rigging, learn the ropes, splash some paint upon the hull. Glass painting, oil painting, printmaking, ceramics, sculpture, photography, guitar: all are unleashed on every deck of the ship. After school classes, evening classes, day classes and weekend workshops are run by artists on the upper decks, decks which they sublet from the centre. They are artists who would otherwise be at sea in leaky boats. “God bless the good ship CCAC,” they say; its existence allows them to simultaneously create work, teach others, and provide a safe, creative space for those who need it.

But the good ship CCAC, folks, may be going down. And it is not the only one.

The Blue House Gallery in Schull has been in this same position for the last two years, hanging on year to year, pending the, perhaps inevitable, sale of the building in which it is housed. The Blue House has long established itself as the principal stage for national-level, professional artists in West Cork. With the loss of the Catherine Hammond Gallery and the Doswell Gallery in recent years there are no dedicated art dealers left in the entire county, making the remaining artist-run galleries, such as the Blue House, all the more vital to the continuance of a visible and viable arts sector in the region. But that is, in a very real sense, under threat.

To put things in perspective: including Uillinn there are six dedicated art galleries in West Cork, three of which may be classed as arts centres (comprising studios, gallery, workshop and performance space). These are Uillinn (government funded), Working Artist Studios (artist run), Cnoc Buí (philanthropic/artist run), Blue House Gallery (artist run), Clonakilty Community Arts Centre | Gallery Asna (artist run), and the Loft Gallery and Frames (commercially run). Of these, both the Blue House Gallery and Clonakilty Community Arts Centre are on notice, pending the sale of the buildings that house them; that’s one third of West Cork’s art sector infrastructure; yes, one third.

This is a message to Cork County Council and the philanthropists and property owners of the region: West Cork is renowned for its arts, but its artists and galleries are rapidly being priced out of the spaces that enable them to exist. Existing artist-run organisations urgently need appropriate and secure property and support. If you feel strongly about this issue, writing to our local councillors – Isobel Towse (Isobel.Towse@cllr.corkcoco.ie), Noel O’Donovan (Noel.ODonovan@cllr.corkcoco.ie) and Daniel Sexton (Daniel.Sexton@cllr.corkcoco.ie) – is a great way to send the message home. It also gives them the words and impetus they need to bring the needs of the arts sector to the table. If you wish to support CCAC | Gallery Asna financially, you can become a Friend of the Gallery: galleryasna.ie/friends-of-the-gallery/

To contact CCAC: ccac2013@gmail.com