Solstice Arts Centre
would like to invite you and a guest to the opening ofDuality of Form
Eleanor Duffin/Caoimhe Kilfeather/Barbara Knezevic
Curated by Mary Creminon Wednesday, 20 January 2016 at 7.00pm
Followed by wine reception. Exhibition continues until Friday 11 March

Programme of Gallery Events
Opening Night

In conversation: Mary Cremin discusses Duality of Form withparticipating artists Eleanor Duffin, Caoimhe Kilfeather and Barbara Knezevic.

18 Feb 7.30pm

Quiet Music Ensemble: QME is a Cork-based experimental music group.
The word ‘quiet’ in its name is intended to conjure both the sense of hushed
and of peaceful; its music is a restrained meditation on sound itself. The groupconsists of musicians from various musical roots, and draws its repertoire fromdiverse artistic sources, including composers of music, sound artists and visual artists.
Free and guided improvisation is a central aspect of QME’s practice, as isinteraction with pre-recorded and live electronics. QME will perform live
improvisations in response to work featured in Duality of Form as well as
the Irish premiere of Instruments of Ice by Karen Power.
Admission Free (Pre-booking essential)
Duration: 1hr 10mins (incl. interval)

RSVP to Joy Russell at 046 909 2335 or joy.russell@solsticeartscentre.ie

Duality of form is a philosophical inquiry into
the nature of objects and how their meaningcomes into being. The world of objects andartifacts are a trove of hidden meanings thatevolve and change over time. As artworks,
objects demonstrate their capacity to elude
definition. In contemporary society we aredefined by what we consume and collect,
within these parameters we tend to define ourenvironment. The invited artists explore andelucidate the idea of an object’s plurivocality
through sculpture, photography, drawing
and text.
In his book Illuminations, Walter Benjaminwrote that every object was invested with adouble valence: negative and positive, like anobject and its shadow. In the lifecycle of anobject when it is created he viewed it as vested
in its utopian dimension, its cynical dimension
was as a commodity and only in its
obsolescence could it regain its freedom. He
remarked: “only in extinction is the (true)collector comprehended” 1. Both Caoimhe
Kilfeather and Barbara Knezevic play with thisnotion of the artist as a collector, as someone
who ‘liberates things from the bondage of utility.’
What is decisive for Benjamin is that the “object
be dissociated from all its original function inorder to enter into the closest possible
relationships with its equivalent. This is thediametric opposite of use, and stands under thecurious category of completeness” 2.
Caoimhe Kilfeather’s photographic series titled
Skep, looks at the properties of a defunct object
that reflects outmoded practices as well as
form and aperture. A Skep was used forcollecting bees and has now become anornament. Kilfeather’s oval line of bronze
shown in conjunction with the photographs
delineates the base of the skep as it rotatesand outlines a boundary that alludes to drawing
and perhaps a space that objects are contained.
Her second photographic series in theexhibition of facades relate directly to thehanging ceramic tile works. They point to realworld environments and reflect on thesubjective nature of memory when recalling
details of places. Memories tend to be aconstruct of objects, which retain significanceonly when recalled.

Through her sculptural pieces Barbara Knezevic
traces possible meanings that are trapped inmaterial objects that conspire to evade us
through their presence and absence. Pine
broomhandles are scorched and burnt in coded
patterns, a floor piece of a knotted rope thecenter of which burnt is out, a clear cast glass
object is placed in the center. Theinterconnectivity between the pieces allows us
to decode possible interpretations of the works.
Fire is a signifier of civilization, it destroys,
illuminates, purifies. Knezevic edits andrearranges objects into unstable and often
temporary arrangements creating new
relationships between objects.
The artist Marcel Broodthaer’s when talking
about his work stated; ‘that fiction allows us tograsp reality and at the same time what ithides’.3 Similarly, Eleanor Duffin creates a fictive
space through her publication Phantom ofForm; using text and graphics she creates anarrative around a fictional ‘other’ woman
whose primary focus is materiality in relation toobjects and their functional presence. The
female protagonist is a device to create
distance between the artist and her work. This
resonates with Benjamin’s idea of the ‘double
valence’ — in this case the artist and hershadow. Duffin through this work explores how
language can inform sculpture and how
material/immaterial language can be
manifested in text and in visual formulation.
We have now entered speculative realism — ‘aworld where the object, whether thing, tool
commodity, thought, phenomenon or living
creature has regained its rights, freed from thesubject of mind, body and gaze’4. The artists
demonstrate this liberation through artworks
that obstruct, disrupt and interfere with socialnorms. In a time when objects tend to define us
through our reliance on them for validation, tocommunicate, socialise, we perhaps need to reassess our relationship to the object and turnour gaze.

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www.solsticeartscentre.ie
Solstice Arts Centre
Railway Street
Navan, County Meath
Ireland
T. +353 46 9092300

Benjamin, Walter, Illuminations, Fontana Press, UK,
1973, 41.
Ibid., 38.
Krauss, Rosalind, A Voyage on the North Sea: Art in
the age of the Post-Medium condition’, Thames &Hudson, UK, 1999, 41.
Hudek, Anthony, The object: Documents ofcontemporary art, Whitechapel Gallery & MITPress, UK, 2014, 16.

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Gallery Opening Hours
Tues – Sat, 11am–4pm
Admission Free

Image: Caoimhe Kilfeather, Skep (IV), 2014, B&W silver gelatin print, 54 × 44 cm. Ed of 3 + 1AP.