The End is the Beginning’ is a group exhibition in which artists examine moments of personal significance from the last 12 months.
Each of the pieces will see the artists reflect on their past year – searching for milestones, emotional turning points, or decisive life events – and then allowing those moments to achieve expression through the work.
Artists hail from across the globe including Argentina, Ireland, Spain and Poland, and use a blend of media – from painting, and collage to video and installations.
Artists are: Florencia Caiazza | Rebecca Cairns | Ashley Holmes | Bartosz Kolata | Mary O’Mahony | Lorraine Masters | Blanco Rego | Gianna Tasha Tomasso | Naomi Vona | Isabella Walsh
The End is the Beginning is curated by Louise Marlborough as part of The Market Studios Curatorial Residency.
The painting "Helena" is a portrait of my grandmother who was celebrating her 90th birthday with me and whole family. It was a very moving and positive moment for me as I haven't seen some of my extended family for many years. It was wonderful, but strange, to see us all assembled together in the one place after so long and all having changed so much. It felt almost surrealistic, like a sort of “last supper" and made me think about how weak and inaccurate memory can be.
My very personal reconciliation with her psychological and physical ageing during this family gathering started my reflection on my own ageing – and on how deeply important relationships between people are.
The experience of that event made me accept that everything operates by laws of nature and death is one of them. In the following months I started to appreciate more the value of the time which I spend with people I love, knowing that the resent can last only a second. It makes me think about the forthcoming year with a certain optimism.
This was the starting point for a series of works called Self Portrait which I started with the beginning of 2013. These paintings reflect my melancholic mood and express the sense of loss and emptiness that an acute awareness of the passage of time can bring. Capturing moments like this expresses the poignancy of these pauses in time, moments of connection when the subjects, together for a short while, look out of the picture into the viewing plane at us, the viewers, who become present with them.