GRAFT | Group Show in Cork City, Glucksman Gallery and the National Sculpture Factory

GRAFT is the first collaboration of its kind between the Glucksman Gallery and the National Sculpture Factory. GRAFT will feature five unique pieces of art at key locations throughout Cork city and aims to create a novel artistic experience for audiences in the city and online.
Five individual artists based in Ireland have been commissioned to create a temporary installation each, which will be unveiled on the 17th September, as part of Culture Night, and will be in place until 31st October.
The artists selected are Linda Quinlan, Bríd Murphy, Adam Gibney, Seodín O’Sullivan and Vanessa Donos López. All were invited to take part in the exhibition by the curatorial team who evaluated each artist’s practice on the basis that it could be imaginatively adapted to the temporary public space.
Each artist is working on a site-specific sculpture to be produced and presented in consultation with the two organisations:
- Linda Quinlan, a native of Cork city, aims to capture the living spirit of the city’s renowned English Market by creating a series of paintings depicting foodstuffs that will be presented on customised aprons worn by market traders.
- Seoidín O’Sullivan, originally from Zambia and an Art Lecturer in NCAD, is producing a series of ‘swing-like’ sculptural works for the city centre park, Bishop Lucey Park. These objects will use copper-plated text to draw a connection between Cork, Zambia, copper mining, Afrofuturism, space exploration and her own family background.
- Bríd Murphy, a Dublin-based visual artist, will highlight the lack of suitable, affordable accommodation for young people by creating a series of new films which will be projected from inside the former Liam Ruiséal bookshop out on to Oliver Plunkett street.
- Artist and Research Masters student Adam Gibney has created a network of solar-powered loudspeakers which will be arranged throughout Cork city and that together will convey a phrase that will steer audiences across multiple audible points from one speaker to the next.
- In Wandesford Quay along the banks of the River Lee, Spanish-born Vanessa Donoso López will exhibit over 100 kiln-fired ceramics embedded with intricate designs and patterns. The ceramics will be clustered on embankments and outcroppings of land. Over the course of GRAFT these will also be submerged but still visible.
Further programme details and access information can be obtained from the Glucksman www.glucksman.org/exhibitions/graft and the National Sculpture Factory www.nationalsculpturefactory.com and a dedicated exhibition website www.graftcork.ie will launch on 11 September.