Farmleigh Gallery presents “Crowded Thresholds” 7 December 2019 – 25 March 2020

A thought-provoking exhibition on tour from the National Design and Craft Gallery, Crowded Thresholds represents the ‘emotional geography’ of the makers, generating a fascinating visual interplay between authentic storytelling and artistic expression, with a sense of playfulness and infectious imagination. A common thread throughout is the artists’ preoccupation with making the invisible, visible, and a fundamental interest in traditional processes and materials.

From amputated limb jewellery to wearable measurement systems; ‘voluptuously illustrated’ silk scarfs, to Rorschach inkblot textile hangings; derelict angel houses constructed using found materials, to artefacts that suggest new ways of representing the self – Crowded Thresholds is an intriguing group exhibition of established and emerging practitioners, working across different disciplines in applied art, design and visual art.

Crowded Thresholds explores effects of the subconscious in the creation and response to objects of material culture. Reflecting on what Freud termed ‘The Uncanny’, the psychological experience of something as strangely familiar, the curator is interested in how psychoanalytic concepts overlap with the creative process. Bringing together a disparate set of influences from popular culture to the avant-garde; surrealism to realism; social cultural issues to the body at a microscopic level – the exhibition ultimately embraces our humanity.

Dates: 7 December until 25 March 2020

Opening Hours: Tuesday to Sunday – 10.00 to 17.00 (Closed 13.00 – 14.00)

Admission: Free

A full list of forthcoming events at OPW Heritage Sites is available here.

ENDS

The artists engaged in this exhibition are:

• Max Brosi
• Joe Caslin
• Julie Connellan
• Hazel Kenny
• Daithi Magner
• Paul McClure
• Caoimhe McGuckin
• John Rainey
• Niall Sweeney
• Brigitta Varadi

Curated by Fiona Mulholland.