Niamh McCann

In the broad terms my work invites a re-consideration of our relationship to the world around us – a questioning of how this world constitutes us as subjects and how we, in turn, give this world form. My recent work examines, in particular, to what extent our understandings of the grand themes of modernity, globalisation and urbanisation are actually shared and experienced in common. I look toward splicing together references from intuition and imagination with memories of clichéd tourist and urban signs, all evoking complex discourse of representation and the real. There is a play with the complexities of surface in which diverse narratives and visual codes collide, slipping in and out of identifiable political and cultural affiliations.

In working through this, my thought process has been developed and channeled through making – a making that explores philosophical riddles/conundrums through seemingly random juxtapositions and spatial relationships. Practically speaking, this involves aspects of representation; the framing and construction of visual landscape through devices such as the use of the de-contextualised, vestigial modernist icon or the recasting of information as pure image.

The residency is organised with the support of The Arts Council of Ireland and Culture Ireland as well as the Finnish Institute in London and Frame – Finnish Fund for Art Exchange as part of the annual artists’ exchange programme between HIAP and Temple Bar Gallery & Studios, Dublin.