Visual Art Trail

VISUAL ART

Visual Art Trail

Sat 01 – Sat 29 July | All Day

BaHa Artist Collective Visual Art Trail 2022

Event Details

Times & Dates:
Sat 01 – Sat 29 July | All Day
Official opening Sligo City Hall Sat 01 July, 5pm

Event Categories:
Visual Art

Admission:
Free

Venue:
Peter John, Wine St. / , Cake my Day Wine St / Henry Lyon's Department Store (Quay St.) / The Canopy - O'Connell St, The Canopy - Wine St car park entrance) The Canopy formerly known as Johnston Court Shopping Centre

With this third iteration of the Visual Artist Trail, Sligo town becomes a gallery again. We host five contemporary artists, placing their art in repurposed buildings and locations, temporarily creating exhibition spaces for the public to view as they conduct their regular day to day. This year we explore themes of the dreamlike and the intangible constructed around us, with work that evokes these qualities. 2023 VAT artists are Shane Finan, Paul Hallahan, Karen Browett, Rebbeca Massey and BaHa collective artists Adam Flynn & Ken Gunning. Visual Art Trail is co-ordinated and curated by Hannah Dobson and Barry McHugh.

Participating Artists

Paul Hallahan

Paul Hallahan’ s artistic practice primarily focuses on painting, but commonly brings in moving image and sculptural elements to his works and projects. Hallahan’s work is based in the abstracted interpretations of the world around him, delving into various subjects but mainly exploring human interaction and relationship with nature and civilisation.

 Over the years, Hallahan has exhibited his works extensively, winning the Golden Fleece Award in 2018. He has exhibited his work in numerous solo and group exhibitions with recent solo exhibitions including Hang Tough Contemporary (2023), The Dock (2022), The Complex (2020) and Roscommon Arts Centre (2020).

Rebecca Massey

Rebecca Massey is an Australian born Irish artist based in the West of Ireland. Graduating with a Higher Degree in Fine Art from Sligo I.T. and an MSc in Film Making from Staffordshire University & Filmbase in Dublin. She has worked across a broad range of media from art and drawing to film production, installation and music, exhibiting works around Ireland and the UK.  Working mainly with digital and traditional drawing techniques, her work uses playful introspection as a means to communicate notions and emotions of being with the viewer, essentially seeking to poke the darker side of everyday life with a stick then to run and hide beneath the sheets of paper. Rebecca returned to Sligo in 2017 where she now lives and works in Sligo town.

Shane Finan

Shane Finan assembles artworks from interactive technologies. He always collaborates, most recently working with fungi, lichen, artists, farmers, birds and ecologists. His work is about the effect of technology on rural behaviours. He is a co-founder of the collaborative art research space ^ and founded the artistic research project Púca in the Machine in 2021.

 Karen Browett

Karen Browett is an artist, musician and tutor. She takes a multidisciplinary approach to each project, often pulling from experience outside of art disciplines such as her qualifications in horticulture and time spent working with plants. Karen graduated from the MA ARC Arts and Research Collaboration program through IADT (First Class Hons) in January of 2021, was awarded the Agility Award by The Arts Council in July 2021 and is a current recipient of the Arts Council Bursary Award. Karen was chosen as the ‘Emerging Artist Residency’ recipient at The Darkroom, D7 from April to September 2022 and as a Future Labs resident artist at DAS Belfast from September 2022 to March 2023. Karen has been exhibiting since 2012 in group and solo contexts. Her most recent solo exhibitions were Loose on the Streets, The Darkroom, September 2022, and Scurrying Things, Kenilworth Ln Studios, April 2022.

BaHa

BaHa, the 3D art collective, was formed in 2018 by three Sligo artists. In the same year, Sligo was listed as having the highest percentage of empty shop fronts in Ireland. For years, we watched emptiness take over our home. As we began creating a space for our work in the community, reopening empty spaces became an intrinsic part of BaHa’s practice. Taking over these spaces temporarily, we show the building’s potential and ask people to reimagine the empty. Primarily working with reclaimed materials, we also create experimental sound art and live sculpting performances. The themes of our work are rooted in everyday experiences and the current social climate. Participating BaHa members are Adam Flynn & Ken Gunning.

Visual Art Trail Install Team: Terry Markey, Barry McHugh and Hannah Dobson

Thank you to the following for their support: Mulreany Guckian Opticians, Richard Lyons, Leitrim Sculpture Centre, Quayside Shopping Centre, The Canopy