2008

Vanessa Richardson, Hugh O’Connor, Marion McManus, Shea Dalton and John Kenny

*1.Verb: To have or put in a customary place.
To remain fresh and unspoiled.
To persevere in some condition, action, or belief.

**2. A keep is a strong central tower which is used as a dungeon or a fortress. Often, the keep is the most defended area of a castle, and as such may form the main habitation area, or contain important stores such as the armory, food, and the main water well, which would ensure survival during a siege.

Keep is a group exhibition bringing Vanessa Richardson, Hugh O’Connor, Marion McManus, Shea Dalton and John Kenny together in Monster Truck Gallery and Studios. It is a showcase of video work, sculpture and painting, having seemingly nothing in common. Avoiding the limitations of a thematic show, Keep is of differences, lack of similarities and of open interpretation.

SEPTEMBER 2008: IMMATATE

Let’s Get Visual – 12th Sep (19:00), 13th Sep (All Day), 14th Sep (All Day), 15th Sep (All Day), 16th Sep (All Day), 17th Sep (All Day), 18th Sep (All Day), 19th Sep (All Day), 20th Sep (All Day), 21st Sep (All Day) at Monster Truck Gallery & Studios

Paddy Designer, Paddy Architect and Paddy Illustrator walk into a gallery…
In a special Fringe exhibition, Monster Truck has invited a motley crew of leading creatives from outside the world of Fine Art to attempt to solve the puzzle artists struggle with: What is art?

This is a free and unticketed event. The gallery is open from 1-7pm (7-9pm on Friday 12 Sept).

Paddy designer, Paddy Architect and Paddy Illustrator walk into a gallery!

The Fringe Festival held in Dublin City has been one of the huge cultural highlights in recent years, turning the capitol city into a buzzing theatre. The very nature of the Festival is to showcase events on the fringe of the expected; this normally results in exciting and unusual showcasing in dance, theatre, music, circus and art amongst many more activities. This year the event management were keen to get Monster Truck Gallery on board as its rapid turnover of eclectic shows have captured the attention of the Capitols public in the last year. We came up with a show that we felt would be in keeping with the ethos of the festival and give us the unique opportunity to work with very interesting creatives outside the world of art, for a change! IMMATATE is a two week exhibition at Monster Truck Gallery and Studios, where contributors, traditionally based in commercial professions, would be invited to produce a fine art group show. These would include up to eight creatives (Graphic designers, Architects, Product designers etc.) from both Ireland and England. What we hope to see is their interpretation or imitation of what they consider to be Fine Art. By applying their wide range of skills we hope to see how creatives outside of the Fine Art world attempt to answer the question what is modern art? The title plays on the names of both Ireland and England’s prime Art Museums together and creating the brief for the show, which is to imitate what you may find within its walls.

The show will open on Friday 12th of September 2008, with a reception from 6 until 8 and continuing until Sunday 21st September. This is a free and unticketed event. The gallery is open from 1-7pm (7-9pm on Friday 12 Sept).

SEPTEMBER 2008: PROJECT PLATFORM AT DUBLIN ART FAIR ’08

Magnhild Opdøl is an interdisciplinary artist using multi-various media, inc. drawing, taxidermy, painting, sculpture and installation. She often atttributes animal characteristics to humans, using images to highlight the perfusion of power in our world, as well as generating dichotomies between world-scale and intimate personal goals. Norwegian Magnhild has exhibited throughout her native Scandinavia, and currently occupys Dublin City Council’s International Studio at the Red Stables. Part of The Monster Truck Gallery & Studios, she received the Monster Truck Award (2008).

Commercial space
The Dublin ART Fair (off site RDS, Dublin, Ireland) Sep 11 – 14, 2008

Dublin Art Fair ’08 featured work by James Kirwan (Irl), Martina Cleary (Irl), Jonathan Mayhew (Irl), Magnhild Opdoel (NO), Mark Beatty (Irl), Julia Mac Conville (Irl), Colm Mac Athlaoich (Irl), Nina Tanis (USA), Sheila Renick(Irl),  Aileen Murphy (Irl).

Preview Evening (invitation only)
Thursday 11 Sept 18:00 – 21:00

Weekend
Friday 12 Sept 12:00 – 21:00
Saturday 13 Sept 11:00 – 19:00
Sunday 14 Sept 11:00 – 19:00

AUGUST 2008: MAGNHILD OPDOL

As a featured artist at the Dublin Art Fair’s project ‘Platform’, Norwegian artist, Magnhild Opdøl will present a magnificent mixed media installation this coming September in association with Monster Truck/RHA.

Monster Truck Gallery and Studios is proud to announce a special preview for one night only, of selected works on paper by Magnhild Opdøl, winner of the 1st Annual Monster Truck Award. These works on paper come from a series, which will be for sale at the Monster Truck stall at the Dublin Art Fair in September, but are also available at a reduced preview price for you to purchase between 6pm and 8pm on August 7th 2008 at the Monster Truck Gallery, Francis Street.

Magnhild is an interdisciplinary artist from Norway who has exhibited internationally and has curated dozens of exhibitions in mainland Europe. Magnhild recently concluded an International Artist in Residence at Dublin City Council’s Red Stables Studios. In September 2008 she will be presenting new work at the ‘Project Platform’ space at the centre of the Dublin Art Fair in the RDS. In October there will be a solo show of her work in Galleri LNM, Oslo, and in November her work will be included in ’40/40′, a retrospective of forty years of Norwegian painting, to be exhibited in the Stenersenmuseet, Oslo. Next year Magnhild will present a solo show of new work in Monster Truck Gallery and Studios.

Magnhild Opdøl works in a variety of media, including drawing, painting, sculpture and even taxidermy! Her most recent work explores political and historical themes while appropriating images from popular culture, subculture, art and the media.

We are thrilled to offer you this opportunity to access the work of an artist in great demand, on the cusp of an exciting international career.

We look forward to you joining us!
Monster Truck / RHA

JULY 2008: DAMIEN O’CONNELL

Through constructed depictions of vacant public/private, institutional/domestic space: O’Connell’s work explores presence and absence. In particular, he is interested in personal absurdity and disconnection. The anaesthetic of the waiting room is central to his work as it carries a restrained tension, articulating a sense of transience, memory and futility.

Damien O’Connell is a graduate artist of Limerick School of Art and Design. Originally from Ballinskelligs, Co.Kerry, he currently lives and works in Limerick City. In September 2008, Damien will undertake the MA Fine Art in Central Saint Martins.

JULY 2008: DEIRDRE BYRNE

Crossed Lines is an exhibition of new drawings by Deirdre Byrne which will be exhibited in Monster Truck Gallery and Studios from Thursday 3rd of July until Tuesday 15th of July. This series of works show bleak industrial landscapes made with pen, ink and coffee on paper. Crossed Lines refers to the process of drawing itself and also to the turn of phrase ‘to cross the line’; meaning a boundary which, when passed, something that was once deemed as acceptable becomes unacceptable. Taking imagery from her surrounding environment, Deirdre draws in detail, planes, pylons, cranes & billboards, among other manmade structures which have marked and altered the landscape. Then, using a range of tools from a spinning top to a drinking straw, she allows the ink to spin, blow, splash and bleed across the paper to create a sombre atmosphere or to depict the invisible effects these structures have on their surrounding habitat.

Deirdre graduated from the National College of Art & Design with first class honours in fine art painting in 2003. Recently she was part of a group exhibition, curated by Caroline Cowley, Amharc Fhine Gall – It’s All in the Detail at Draíocht Blanchardstown. Last year she had a solo exhibition at the Cockleshell Gallery, Duncannon, Co. Wexford and a two person show with Kate Minnock at the Tinahely Courthouse Arts Centre, Co. Wicklow, as well as curating Pass it On, a project and exhibition of twenty artists which travelled around Ireland. She lives and works with a group of artists in Kinsealy, North County Dublin.

The exhibition will be open daily from 1–7pm, Friday 4th–Tuesday 15th July with a preview on Thursday 3rd July from 6–8pm.

JUNE 2008: CANDY MAGAZINE

JUNE 2008: ALEX REILLY

In a crumbing havelli in rural Rajasthan, Irish artist Alexander Reilly found a broken link in an ancient art. This discovery has inspired a new era of miniatures that restores this age old style to it’s original purpose – to depict the contemporary.

Miniature art in India probably dates back as far as the 11th century, though it is from the Mughal period that most of the miniatures we have today survive. Using vegetable and mineral pigments and fine brushes of squirrel hair, the process of their creation is shrouded in mystery and ritual. These miniatures traditionally depicted scenes from the great Hindu epics, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata , as well as scenes from the lives of their patrons, the maharajahs of kingdoms that existed when India was not one country, but many.

Intrigued by the intricacy and delicacy of this style, Alexander Reilly began to study the various schools of miniature art. Initially, this was not with the intention of emulating this style but merely a desire to explore a new aesthetic. It was while living with a miniature painter in Rajasthan, that he made a major discovery. On a hot dusty October morning, he set out to visit this painter’s 96 year old grandmother. Five hours of offroading later, he arrived in a part of Rajasthan that after a battle of centuries, is finally giving way to desert. Though she lived in a huge havelli, the Indian version of an Italian villa, it was crumbling around her. It was as much a relic of a bygone age as she was herself. The family owned vast areas of land in the area, but it had ceased to matter. A neighbouring family had left two years before and their abandoned havelli was unlocked for Alex to explore. Intricately carved and beautiful stonework made it difficult to believe that one could abandon this ancient grandeur for the crowded pollution of Jaipur. However, after three consecutive years of diminishing rainfall, who could blame villagers for leaving in their droves? After all, there is no life without water.

It was in this abandoned mansion that Alex saw a painting that changed his view of Indian miniatures. For here, was a painting that depicted not courtly scenes or epic battles, but a steam train. The idea that this style had been used to represent the contemporary even after British occupation excited him. Was it possible that there were artists still creating miniatures now, that reflected the year 2008?

On further research, he realised that this was not the case. The majority of the prized paintings in the National Museum in Delhi are by unknown artists. At the time of their creation, these two dimensional miniature paintings could have the work of many hands, intricately depicting the details of a battle, a court, an epic scene, down to the tiniest and most insignificant element. Like many great works of the subcontinent, the Taj Mahal included, they are credited to the patron who commissioned them and not to the creators. They were not considered to be artists, and possibly not even artisans. They were almost labourers and at the turn of the century, they came to fit that title more and more, as they stopped painting original images and began to use their skills not to create but to replicate the miniature images of the past. From one painting to the next, the colour, the composition varied little. And today, in factory-like settings, painters repaint old images for an ever growing tourist market.

Alex visited art colleges all over India and found no up and coming painters who were exploring the aesthetic of their nation. Like in so many aspects of Indian life, they are rushing away from their own tradition to a vision of the western world as it appears from an eastern perspective. This was true of our own country in less affluent times and possibly still today; but it takes time before a country, eager to develop, realise the value of their own heritage not just culturally but economically.

Somewhere along the line, 70 or 80 years back, the strand had been lost. And so, Alex decided to bridge the broken lind and use the age old aesthetic of Indian miniature to depict a contemporary world as he saw it.

There are many reasons why this art ceased to represent the contemporary, colonisation, the loss of patronage, the race to develop. The aim of this show, however, is not to explore that, but to rectify it, picking up the strands of miniature art where they fell, armed with a knowledge of a modern art world. This exhibition looks to an east who are are one hand, desperately rushing toward the west and on the other, fiercely protecting their own tradition. A nation who on the one hand are glibly disgarding their own tradition in favour of ours and on the other hand defensively

One painting that explores this duality is “Hand washing”. In the home of a painter and friend, Santosh, Alex shared a room with a brand new washing machine. It had never been taken out of the box. On enquiring about it, he learned that it had come as part of Santosh’s sister in law’s dowry. When his mother saw it, she dismissed it with a wave of the hand. The only English speaker in the house Santosh explained “In India, we wash clothes by hand” And that was that. The television that was part of the same dowry was welcomed into the home and with it, all the madness and misconceptions that comes with American television and movies, edited for “Indian family viewing”. This exhibition explores such contradictions in both it’s style and subject.

Alexander Reilly is exhibiting at Monster Truck Gallery, Francis Street, Dublin 8 from Friday 13th to Monday 17th of June. The opening reception is on Thursday 12th from 6-8pm.

JUNE 2008: ANIZ DURA AND NINA TANIS

Words by: Michael Freeman

“Hi ho hey hey, Chew your little troubles away” *

Aniz Duran and Nina Tanis are two artists who have come together over a shared interest in chewing gum. For Tanis, the sheer amount of the stuff that is thrown on the city streets is a fascination (Dublin City Council removed one hundred and eighty thousand pieces from Grafton Street over a single month in 2005). Duran describe her interest as ‘a fascination [that] can develop innocently over the childhood memories of an unplanned hair cut that was conspired by the accidental bubble’ but concedes that ‘Perhaps it’s just a trick to delay maturity? A silly way to sabotage progress?’

The artists invite you chew over their work and decide for yourself.

Chewing gum, substantially speaking, is just a rubbery material with added flavour. The original rubbery material was chicle; but currently the gum in your mouth is made, literally, out of rubber the same stuff as your shoe heels (styrene-butadiene), or your bicycle’s inner tubes (polyisobutylene). The rubber is impregnated with sweeteners and flavouring. And if you have a stick of gum rather than a pellet, the dusty stuff on its surface is powdered marble. Gum is probably the least nutritious thing you will ever willingly put in your mouth; and almost the only thing that you intentionally spit out again.

During World War Two, Wrigley’s lobbied successfully to have its products included in soldiers’ standard ration packs (arguing that it helped combat thirst). To meet the demand this entailed, Wrigley’s ceased all production of its standard brands for the domestic market (simultaneously launching a marketing drive aimed at creating nostalgia for them that is probably that only campaign ever to advertise a product nobody could buy). Unavailable to the civilian population, but issued to soldiers at war, chewing gum was suddenly not just a recreation but part of a fundamental survival kit.

After the war ended, when gum was available to civilians again, sales of Wrigley’s hit six times what they had been before the war began. But initially, ingredient shortages meant there was a delay bringing chewing gum back into production for the domestic market. Then, in 1946, Andrew J. Paris appeared on the cover of LIFE magazine as a national hero. He had imported 5,000 tons of chicle from Mexico; and enabled the chewing gum factories to begin manufacture of the nutritionless, benefit-free oral distraction necessary for peacetime life to resume

*part of a song, in a Wrigley’s advertisement from the 1950s

MAY 2008: ART SWAP

Venue: Monster Truck Gallery & Studios, 73 Francis St., Dublin 8, Ireland.

Monster Truck Gallery & Studios, in collaboration with the Royal Hibernian Academy, is organising a unique event for artists only. The Monster Truck ArtSwap invites 60 artists to exchange their work in a one day event were thousands of euro worth of artwork will change hands for money whatsoever!

600 invites were issued to artists. The first 60 artists to respond were invited to participate in the ArtSwap event. These artists work ranges from painting drawing and sculpture to video, print and illustration. Members of the Royal Hibernian Academy have also been invited to contribute work and choose their favourite piece to swap. Participating artists will be issued with one token, and the first artists in the door at 6pm will get first choice of the work on display. The last artist to come in will get the last the last work available. Strictly first come first served!

The public are invited to view this spectacle 7-9pm. This will also coincide with the announcement of the winner of the first annual Monster Truck Award.

MAY 2008: ED MURPHY

Commit to memory is a an exhibition of new work by Dublin artist Edward Murphy.

The opening reception is at 6pm on Thursday the 22nd of May 08 all welcome
The Gallery is open from 1pm-7pm daily for the duration of the show.

The work has been made during the last 8 months whilst he has been working in the studios. The show contains new large scale photographs made in remote areas of urban Dublin which are specifically set aside as leisure spaces but are continually under the gaze of new development constantly reminding them of their fragile existence. Murphy’s small interventions within these landscapes are captured on film, as their existence is fleeting. The objects placed within the landscape are intended to interact with the natural environment making their presence seem less intrusive.

The exhibition also contains a new video work “harvest” which was made within the gallery space and is a performance by the artist recreating the drawings and interventions which were the beginning points of this exhibition.

Edward lives and works in Dublin.

Artist statement:
“Making landscape photographs I like to intervene within the frame and leave something very transient within the landscape that can be left forever in the photograph giving us a new space to navigate and interact with”.

MAY 2008: NCAD 2nd YEAR PRINT

Participating Artists: Anneke Blennerhassett, Chloe Brennan, Lindi Campbell-Clause, Siobhan Cox, Donal Deery , Luke Deignan, Darren Healy, David Lunney, Ann-Marie Lynch, Anja Mahler, Vera McEvoy, Ben Mulligan, Clare O’Connor, Samantha Ratanarat, Michelle Russell, Conor Vella

Monster Truck Gallery & Studios is pleased to host this years end of year print exhibition by the students of the National College of Art and Design second year Fine Art Print Making. The 2007 show was one of our favorite events of the year at Monser Truck, and we are again looking forward to discovering some of the fresh talent that is being fostered so nearby to us on Thomas Street.

This year, the students are presenting an eclectic show consisting of a wide variety of mediums and methods, including lithography, etching, silk screen printing and digital media

The launch takes place on Thursday 15th between 6-8, all welcome.

MAY 2008: PATRICK ANDERSON MCQUOID AND MARINA MILETIC

Press contact: Press@monstertruck.ie

INSIGHTS: Photographs / Found Objects, Belgrade, Serbia by Patrick Anderson-McQuoid

Through this exhibition of small works, Patrick Anderson-McQuoid explores national and social identity by reflecting everyday spaces, people and artefacts of the city of Belgrade, Serbia. The work is a development of Anderson-McQuoid’s 2006 exhibition on the Irish landscape at the VIP Gallery, SKC Cultural Centre in Belgrade.

Patrick Anderson-McQuoid was born in Dublin and has been based in County Leitrim for the past 20 years. His early childhood was spent in Northern Ireland before living in Cornwall. England. After returning to Ireland he worked with the Irish Ballet Company before opening the Tubular Gallery in Cork City. He was the founder and Artistic Director of the Triskel Arts Centre in 1978. He has exhibited world wide, and his work is represented in many works private and public collections.
Anderson-McQuoid and his wife Marina Miletic work together as the performance art duo ‘Dvadream’, working in Ireland and mainland Europe.

OFF THE WALL: Belgrade Graffiti, Photogaphs by Marina Miletic

Historically, the term graffiti originally referred to the inscriptions found on the walls of ancient ruins, as in the catecombs of Rome and other sites. The first known example of “modern style” graffiti survives in the ancient Greek city of Ephesus,(in modern day Turkey). Modern graffiti, which is associated with hip-hop culture and spans all racial and economic groups,began in the mid-to late 1960s; it made its way to New York city and quickly became a phenomenon.
Later, graffiti artists began to paint on canvas and paper, attracting the attention of art dealers and collectors.
In her exhibition ‘Off the Wall’, Marina Miletic has touched on her emotional engagement with her home city of Belgrade to bring a sense of place for others to view by way of her photographs.
Marina Miletic was born in Belgrade,Serbia. After her studies at the Stankoviv Music School in Belgrade she worked with the performance art groups KVART and Ultima Occasio, later exhibiting in Europe. Together with her husband Patrick Anderson-McQuoid, Miletic is a member of ‘Dvadream’, a performance art duo working in Ireland and mainland Europe.

MAY 2008: HOLLY PEREIRA

By investigating family resemblances through studying existing members of her extended family in Singapore she strives to detect any physical resemblances between her and her relatives. It is as if the physicality of studying these faces, some long dead, will bring her closer to some kind of understanding about her origins. The concentration it takes to recreate these people in paint gives me time to reflect on the person and situation of her ancestors.

Holly Pereira graduated from the National College of Art and Design in 2004, with an honours degree in Fine Art (Sculpture). In October 2008 she will participate in a three month residency in Post-Museum, Little India, Singapore to engage with both her family who reside in the city-state, and the (mostly migrant) population that inhabit Little India.

She lives and works in Co. Wicklow.

APRIL 2008: PATRICK DONALD

Street Photography

Since beginning his career over thirteen years ago Patrick Donald has developed a unique photographic style. His work aims to provide the viewer with an emotional insight into the documentary images he presents. He is particularly interested in the influence of environments, be they political, physical, or technological, on the advancement and evolution of societies.

The photographs in this exhibition were taken in Cuba during a period of great change and upheaval, just one month before Fidel Castro stepped down as president. They serve as a record of the Cuban people at this particular time, and of the day to day life of the Capital, Havana. The cultures Donald experienced in Cuba are so different from our modern European life. His interest focus’s the spirit and openness of the people and the physical fabric of there environment.

To follow up on this exhibition, Donald plans to return to Cuba twice more, in 2018 and 2028. In this way, this series of work will become an important document of the changes in a country which is in the middle of a political shift of power, and one of the last outposts of communism in an increasingly capitalist world.

Donald sees Cuba as having been trapped in a time warp which before to long will have many more influences from neighbouring countries which will drastically change the country and its people. In twenty years time, when this project is completed, the final exhibition will be an opportunity to visually see some of the changes that have taken place.

Using film cameras the resulting black and white images are hand printed by the photographer using traditional darkroom techniques. Certain colour images will also be featured

APRIL 2008: LEONIE MC MEEL

The work of Leonie McMeel contains questions, trials and confirmations of answers. Her main concerns are time and change, both in her personal life and the lives of objects. As McMeel develops, the world changes and her paintings change and grow. Through keen observation she embraces the activity of painting, recreating the process many times but never producing the same painting. Time and chance make the artist the mere audience for her own work. This work is a figuration of non-figurative movements, emotions and actions made through experimentation and careful decision-making.

Leonie McMeel studied Fine Art Painting at Limerick College of Art, and Graduated in 2007.

APRIL 2008: LET’GO

Opening : Thursday 3rd April, 6 – 8 pm
Dates: Exhibition open daily April 4th to April 15th, 1 – 7 pm
Location: Monster Truck Gallery & Studios, 73 Francis Street, Dublin 8

Curated by: Ruth Carroll, in association with Monster Truck
Links
Full press release
Download the poster
www.royalhibernianacademy.ie
www.monstertruck.ie

“Let’go, a verbal play on the children’s building toy Lego, will present work by five artists, along with a number of found objects. The artists are The Little Artists (Darren Neave and John Cake), Dara McGrath, Julie Merriman, Brendan Earley and Luci Lane. Various artistic practices will address the form and function of the block or brick, geometry, the built environment and architecture, money and tabloid newspapers’ fascination with contemporary art and in particular, the now anachronistic argument surrounding Minimalism, public spending on art and sculptor Carl Andre’s work Equivalent VIII.”

MARCH 2008: SEANÁN OLIVER MANFRED KERR

The title for Zulu, Kerr’s first solo exhibition, is taken from the film of the same name; it refers to the two contrasting cultural idioms, which Kerr brings together in this exhibition. The people documented are friends of Kerr’s younger brother from in and around Botharmeen near Kells, Co. Meath. .

This exhibition is a multi-faceted exploration of the burgonning of lives of a certain group of young people (mostly male). A snapshot of people at their most strange and contrary time of their lives, where having just turned eighteen there is still new pleasure and wonder to be had from the world, though often at this stage it is only experienced through the medium of drink and fighting.

This exhibition involves perhaps some drink, a lot less fighting than we would have liked, and a car which will literally drive your scope of aesthethic apprechiation around the bend (not to mention the block) this Easter Holiday!

This show is not a comment, it is a dirty window.

MARCH 2008: CLAIRE LOUISE BLIGH AND ENAGH FARRELL

The first of these will last for 2 weeks and brings together two artists who are concerned with the fragile architecture of feminine identity and memories. These are the themes which sew the work of Clare-Louise Bligh and Enagh Farrell together. Through installation, drawing, photography and performance, the artists invite the viewer to step into a world of sparkling sugar objects that are beautiful, yet brittle to touch. Private and delicate images are layered into ancient pages of books.

Using domestic elements such as old flowery wallpaper Old peeling flowery wallpaper drawn on the walls, and old books abounding with female performance imagery, the two rooms of the gallery are transformed through the artists subtle interventions.

Bligh and Farrell deal with notions of beauty, transience and eventual decay, entwining the realms of surrealisms, spirituality, identity, femininity and the uncanny.

Both Bligh and Farrell studied at the Nation College of Art and design, and have exhibited in diverse settings in Ireland and abroad. Bligh completed a post graduate degree in Fine art at Cyprus College of Art in 2006, and Farrel recently exhibited in her first solo exhibition at the Signal Arts Centre, Bray.

FEBRUARY 2008: JAMES KIRWAN

I’M (NOT) DOING REALY WELL – is a new body of works (paintings, drawings, collages) by Gorey born artist James Kirwan. Kirwan’s art is as colourful and witty as it is uncannily direct, expressing everyday sentiments which are instantly recognisable to us all. The title of this show came about from constantly answering that small-talk question ‘So how are you doing?’ ‘What? How am I doing personally or finacially? What would you really prefer to hear?’ We are all subject to and guilty of asking this question.
The work shows fictional characters displaying different notions of success, failure, perseverence in the worlds of business, art, their personal lives etc. What might be considered success to one person might be seen as failure to another.

James Kirwan has exhibited widely in group exhibitions, most recently The BiG Store at Temple Bar GAllery & Studios, and ‘Shur I Could Do That’ with Deirdre Byrne at gorey Little Theatre. Monster Trcuk is proud to present his first solo exhibition.

FEBRUARY 2008: TEAM YES*

teamYES* is a new creative collaboration formed by Ben Mullen and John Moriarty in November 2006. After both studying and practicing Fine Art and Industrial Design at the national College of Art & Design, the two friends decided to collaborate together under the banner of teamYES*, using it as a focus for their work and a platform for their creative output.
The approach that teamYES* take has always been driven by the desire to explore the definitions or differences between art and design, allowing this exploration to lead to unexpected twists and amusing interventions in the field of multi-disciplinary activity. By adopting an un-precendented outlook on both of their own creative processes, teamYES* invite innovation, fun and a fresh creative honesty into their work, aiming to do everything within a hyper-positive dimension of thought and practice.
Niether strictly an Art or a Design exhibition, Experiments in the Field of Fun* is the result of a pro-active cross pollination of constantly changing ideologies and ambitions between the two collaborators. Often using redundant technology (as a poke in the eye to the world of market-driven design) or employing eccentric handmade machines, there is a celebration of the accidental and a rejoice of the non-sensical in both 2D and 3D formats in their work. Comprising drawing, sculpture, design and photography, Experiments in the Field of Fun* is a fresh take on how art and design may co-exist and inform eachother in a world without creative prejudice.

FEBRUARY 2008: CHRIS JUDGE AND FERGAL BRENNAN

If you cant do that, why don’t you come see the most amazing drawings that Chris Judge and Fergal Brennan have not only imagined, but have, through their collaborative efforts, utilising the medium of pen and paper, vividly brought to fruition!?
They have been collected together in an exhibition entitled INK 69.
These veritable cakes for your eye-rods can be viewed at the Monster Truck Gallery on the 14th – 19th February.

Fergal Brennan is an artist and film maker based in Dublin.
Chris Judge is a painter and illustrator based in Dublin.

FEBRUARY 2008: ALLYSON KEEHAN

Allyson’s paintings have developed from her interest in depicting drapery through oil paint. Drapery or material is of equal importance in the picture plane as the objects, which are placed in and around the folds of fabric. this techinique aims to challenge the well-worn traditionals of still life composition.
Allyson uses still-life painting as a means of tracing and documenting human presence. Each painting shows evidence of different human interaction with the objects. This leaves strange and different compositions, such as ‘chateauxneuf-du-pape’, in which the only evidence that someone has been there is a wine stain left behind after a glass has been removed. The realistic style of painting demonstrates Allyson’s obsessions for correctness and her interest in painting theory.

previous shows include, ‘Silk Purse, Sow’s Ear’ 2006 Limerick, ‘Symptoms of Fetishism’ Drioacht, Blanchardstown 2006.

FEBRUARY 2008: BIGFOOT

In February 2008, Monster Truck Gallery & Studios will be hosting the exhibition ‘BIG FOOT”, a collection of work by all artists who have exhibited in solo or group shows in Monster Truck Gallery, over the past two years, as part of the Monster Truck/RHA Collaboration Launch Party.

The Royal Hibernian Academy closed in November to refurbish the building and galleries and is due to re-open at the end of Summer 2008. It is using this opportunity to work hand in hand with innovative artists’ group Monster Truck to help with its ever-expanding agenda and goals.

As the oldest artists’ co-operative in the city the RHA is thrilled to be working with one of the newest, most exciting artists’ collaborations.

Artists have been invited to submit one piece each for the exhibition, all works to be 1 ft sq or a ‘BIG FOOT’ and will be showing for 5 nights only. Opening night is Friday 1 February at Monster Truck, Francis St. from 6 – 8 pm. ‘BIG FOOT’ also references the fact that the building where Monster Truck Galleries & Studios are was once a record shop and that LP’s take on the 1 ft x 1 ft size limit. The exhibition title also refers to the big wheeled iconic monster truck famous in the 80’s and Monster Truck/RHA’s big foot in the right direction for 2008!

JANUARY 2008: IAN CLOTWORTHY AND AMENDA ELENA CONRAD