Stopgap
A video work
by Laura Gannon
Monday 7th July to Friday 25th July 2003
Riverbank Arts Centre
Laura Gannon was born in Ireland in 1972. She
graduated from the University of Ulster with an Honours
Degree in Fine Art in 1994, having also studied at the École
National des Beaux Art in Paris. She is currently completing
a Masters in Fine Art at Goldsmiths College in London where
she now lives.
Laura Gannon originally worked as a sculptor, but in recent years
she has diversified into film drawn by the range of visual expression
and the time based quality of the medium.
Stopgap is a work which explores the human presence. The
film starts with a beach covered in open books. The books are collected
by a lone male figure who slowly and methodically picks them up
and throws them into the sea. There is a loose page that floats
away from one of the books and the final shot contains a close up
of this single page. It is a portrait of an older man in a suit
who looks as if he belongs to another era.
The soundtrack throughout contains of breathing, heartbeat
and noises of the sea. These sounds are ongoing, repeated, sounds
that express the continuous pattern of the sea and the breath of
life. The sea sweeps away all evidence of the books as they are
swept out with the tide. This work explores memory and the
visibility of the marks that we make and leave behind us.
It also examines the movement and the moment, how our situations
are ever changing as we live our lives.
Laura Gannon has exhibited widely in numerous group exhibitions
in Ireland, the UK, Germany, and the USA, in addition to solo exhibitions
in the Dublin City Gallery, The Hugh Lane; Temple Bar Gallery, Dublin;
and The Context Gallery, Derry. She has received many awards and
scholarships, including the Macauley Fellowship from the Irish Arts
Council and the Thomas Damann Memorial Fellowship.
Stopgap, a video work by Laura Gannon, is on loan from The Arts
Council / An Comhairle Ealaíon.
The exhibition will be open to the public
from Monday 7th June until Friday 27th July 2003, and will be on
view in the McKenna Gallery.
Gallery opening hours are
Monday to Saturday 10am to 1pm, and 2pm to 5pm.
For further information, please contact Gráinne Dunne or
Catríona Fallon on
045 448314/5. Riverbanks Arts Centre, Main Street, Newbridge, Co
Kildare
e-mail artscentre@riverbank.ie