Portraits | Christopher Banahan at Gallery Cafe

Date/Time
Date(s) - 01/04/2022 - 30/04/2022
11:00 am - 3:00 pm

Location
Gallery Cafe

Website

Email
seawoodhouse@gmail.com

Categories...

• Connaught
• Exhibition
• Reopening

The exhibition consists of portraits celebrating diversity and portraits concerning the fragility and transient nature of life itself.
The portraits are rendered in still poses of contemplation with historical references, such as Vermeer and Ingres. Many of the portraits are multi-layered where the sitter is veiled in a lace effect imparting a sense of intrigue, poignancy and meditations on the human condition.
The portraits give the appearance of being ‘transfixed in time’ (frozen in time and space), yet still make a connection to the contemporary viewer.

The series of Lace paintings reflects the joy of spring, which is particularly apt now that the pandemic is behind us. The floral motifs of the lace patterns can be seen as a metaphor for time appearing fossilised (embedded in a transfixed state ) ,reflecting the transfixed state of lockdown. Yet the colours seeping through the tears in the lace, expresses new life being freed and being reborn.

The exhibition also consists of portraits celebrating diversity, which is part of Gort’s unique demographics; reflecting the rich cultural diversity among it’s population and indeed in Galway and nationally. This rich cultural diversity is celebrated in the portrait of Rebecca wearing a Galway School uniform, enveloped in gold-leaf.

Memoir book series are paintings on recycled book covers reflecting lockdown memories, particularly of the vulnerability and isolation the elderly experienced in rural settings during the pandemic.

Christopher Banahan

Exhibition continues at the Gallery Cafe, Gort, until April 30th.
Open hours: Wen, Thur, Sun – 11 to 5pm. Fri, Sat – 11 to 9pm

*10 percent of all sales goes to Ukraine Red Cross Appeal

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