Bowled over by the best of the also-rans
Stumped: Erin de Burca's 'Cricket Players at Trinity College' is on show in the Bad Art Gallery, Dublin
Saturday October 18 2008
Sometimes art just isn't cricket and such is the case with the selection process for the Royal Hibernian Academy's annual exhibition.
Though some do succeed, many more artists are yearly frustrated by the difficulties in breaking into the golden circle and the way their work is judged (and then rejected).
Well, one enterprising Dublin gallery is more than happy to display those pieces that the artists have considered worthy of submission, even if the RHA panel haven't come to the same conclusion.
The Bad Art Gallery in Francis Street (www.thebadartgallery.ie) has thrown its doors open for the third year to collect all the RHA's unwanted flotsam and jetsam and proudly put it on display.
The end result is The RHA Unselected Show, which opened this week with over 300 pieces ranging from mixed media works to sculptures to paintings such as this one by Erin de Burca. Dublin-born de Burca left Dublin over 20 years ago to work in the Zimbabwean capital Harare and then Madrid, before settling in Alicante where she is still based.
She does make frequent trips home to Dublin, though, and these visits have provided rich inspiration for her most recent works as she has developed an increasing awareness of the impenetrability of her Dublin identity, regardless of how far and long she roams.
"For the visitor even the mundane has an exotic quality; for the native, the city is a backdrop to the practical services by which we cope with urban life," explains de Burca.
"In my native city I can interpret all I see; everything has meaning for me either through personal experience or collective history. There is no mystery," she said.
"On the other hand, the foreign city is all mystery; that is what makes it an attraction for the tourist or a source of terror for the refugee."
sgorman@independent.ie
- Sophie Gorman
