Press release
Items of kind
Leitrim Sculpture Centre
15 April - 6 May 2011
Caoimhe Kilfeather makes sculptural work that investigates the relationships and tensions between functionalism and formalism in everyday objects/materials and their use. Whilst engaging intuitively with ideas of scale, material and the processes of making Kilfeather is also drawn to the idea of ‘legacy’: legacies of form, materials, systems and methods of production and of how these things comprise our experience of normality and familiarity in the world.
An expanded notion of craft and it’s potential to bridge the seemingly oppositional notions of thinking and making in contemporary art practice, form a context within which Kilfeather develops her work. From this perspective, access to facilities such as glass casting at the Sculpture Centre played a role in the resolution of work; allowing an engagement with process to influence and inform the conceptual development of the work.
For the Leitrim Sculpture Centre/Fred Conlon Award exhibition she has produced a new body of work that intersects different interests in ornamentation, the hand-made and mass-produced object, and the aesthetic and formal potential inherent in particular industrial materials.
The choice of material occurs at different points in the development of a thought or a process of making. In this way Kilfeather is interested in how the works can hold a tension between the material, it’s potential, it’s ‘natural’ aesthetic, and the form or image that it describes. In this body of work, surface, weight and texture play an important role in the meaning of the work, and the relationships that are formed between these different elements and the viewers’ experience.
Though not explicitly site specific; the placement of the works within the exhibition and their relationships to each other, as well as the scale at which they are developed, is largely determined while working within the space of the exhibition.
Caoimhe Kilfeather studied at NCAD, Dublin (BA) and the Slade School of Fine Art, London (MA). Recent exhibitions include Swimming in the field, Goethe Institute, Dublin, Holding Together, Douglas Hyde Gallery, Dublin, Spilth, 126, Galway, ev+a, Limerick (all 2010), Faydun Bites, Agency Gallery London (2009) and Broadcast Here, Dublin (2008). She is the recipient of numerous Arts Council Awards: Bursary (2009, 2010), Travel and Training (2005, 2006, 2007), Projects Award (2006); an AHRC Research Scholarship (2007) and a UCL Scholarship (2005).
She teaches in the Sculpture and Combined Media Department at the Limerick School of Art and Design.
The Fred Conlon Award
This award was established by Sligo County Council under the Space for Art Sligo Arts Plan 2007-2012 to honour the late sculptor Fred Conlon, a native of west Sligo. Fred Conlon supported generations of young artists in his life and work and this award pays tribute to his contribution to the cultural life of the region. An initiative of Sligo Arts Service, the award is delivered in partnership with the Conlon Family and the Leitrim Sculpture Centre.