Mullingar artist opens new exhibition in Roscommon
Mullingar native and prominent artist Mark Garry has opened a new exhibition at Roscommon Arts Centre this week.
Mark, a native of the Great Oaks area of the town and a son of Chris and Patricia Garry, is based in Boyle, Co. Roscommon, and throughout his career to date, has been commissioned to create art pieces for cities like New York, Venice, Pittsburgh, Detroit and Vilnius.
This new exhibition has, at its centre, a film work by Mark entitled ‘An Lucht Siúil’ (the Walking People’). The film addresses the relationship between the Irish Travelling community and modernism – specifically, the interactions between Travellers and the Irish state, as they played out between Traveller and settled communities in the mid-20th century.
The narrative of the film, broken into five sections, adopts the theatrical structure of an ancient Greek tragedy, and is performed partly in English and partly in Shelta, the language spoken by Irish Travellers.
Songs written by the artist act as a poetic response to Ireland’s complex relationship with land and land ownership, and the interactions between the peoples who share this land.
Mark is an artist, curator, writer, educator and occasional musician. His practice is multifaceted and incorporates a variety of media, mechanisms and material interests. These include drawing, film making, photography, sculpture, sonic sculpture, performance and collaborative music projects.
In many cases a number of these elements are combined in a singular exhibition situation to form installations. Driven by a fundamental interest in observing how humans navigate the world and the subjectivity inherent in these navigations.
Mark has held exhibitions at museums and art venues in Europe, North America and Asia and represented Ireland at the 2005 Venice Biennale. In addition to this exhibition, this year Mark has had a solo exhibition at The MAC, Belfast and will take part in the Chanwon Sculpture Biennale in South Korea.
‘An Lucht Siúil’ was originally commissioned as part of a Percent for Art project by Roscommon County Council. The exhibition is open from Friday August 7 and continues due the centre’s opening hours until September 22.