Lockdown Diary | Christopher Banahan at KAVA Courthouse Gallery
Lockdown Diary Exhibition, at the KAVA Courthouse Gallery, Kinvara,
September 10th to 14th
To be opened by James Harrold, 6pm Friday 10th September
* for private view, bookings made through evenbrite
Open hours; Fri to sun 10 am to 4pm. Mon to thurs 12pm to 4pm
The artwork in the exhibition are based on the Covid-Lockdown Diary of artist Christopher Banahan, made during the pandemic lockdowns and as a creative response to being a recipient of the Art Council’s Covid crises Artists response Award.
The exhibition addresses themes of loneliness with the effects of social isolation during the lockdowns, particularly for the elderly and the vulnerable in rural communities.
The exhibition also considers the reevaluation of the natural beauty of rural settings and being fortunate enough to be surrounded by such ‘imprisoned splendour’ particularly with the fine weather of the first lockdown.
‘The experience of working in isolation comes naturally and productively for most artists but when the isolation is imposed by the government, it is a different experience altogether. As imposed confinement and the loss of freedom can a constraint on the natural creative process. Therefore during the social isolation of the pandemic, I tried to address issues of confinement, loneliness, loss of liberty and losing one’s grip on reality as we all began to live in a ‘virtual online World’.
The 2 kilometre walking restriction in the early phase of the pandemic at least allowed me to reach my local beach Traught, near Kinvara and sketch figures in isolation whose loneliness was more intensified by the backdrop of the empty wide open beach, which hardly had any footprints on. I remember following a set of one footprints and imagined the excitement Robinson Crusoe must have felt as he came across another persons after being alone for so long.
I wanted to also reflect the fear elderly people and people in general felt when they queued outside. Supermarkets. Like most people, I had pandemic nightmares about the uncertainty of the times we are living in. I tried to express this idea of uncertainty in a series of isolated elderly people pushing shopping trolleys in remote exposed rural locations to exaggerate the insecurity and vulnerability of their experiences.
Later when elderly people were allowed out, I tried to capture them alone, contemplating the expanse of the open sea as a metaphor for the’ fragility of life against the natural elements’.
Then as the lockdown allowed more movement of people , I portrayed larger gatherings on people on the same beach, in search of the perfect Staycation and how so many ignored the rules of social distancing.
Other covid diary images are self portraits, where I am trying to get used to wearing the face masks and how self conscious they made one feel, particularly in the early stages of the pandemic when so few Irish people wore them.
The covid diary images are based on photographs I’d taken on my 2 kilometre walk during social isolation. Other images are from a small visual sketch book Covid Diary, often from my imagination. Reflecting my fear of the pandemic ( particularly in the early stages when there was no vaccine and such a sense of uncertainty, of what really happens in the covid hospital wards).
I hope these covid diary artworks, even though personal have a universal appeal expressing and reflecting the uncertainty and yet unique period we all went through collectively and individually’.
Christopher Banahan
As a response to my Arts Council Covid Crises Artist Response Award 2020 see the following links;