New exhibition to open at South Tipperary Arts Centre

New Neighbours brings together the work of two very exciting artists, Olivia O’Dwyer and Fergal Styles, for the first time. Both artists work come from places of imagination and memory, of things half-remembered or dreamt, with playfulness and experimentation at the heart of each of their practices.

Olivia O’Dwyer is an Irish artist, based in Co.Wexford. Her work is influenced by “Bad Painting” which refers to a deliberately raw style of figurative painting, rejecting traditional ideas of draughtsmanship, mixing art, historical, popular, and personal sources. She examines ideas around quotidian experience, observations drawn from the world around her, and more intimate or personal themes and looks to contemporary culture and ideologies drawn from a female perspective and the ‘female gaze’ feminist theory. “My painting concerns involve the processing of feelings around solitude and vulnerability, often conveyed in a humourous and confessional manner” says Olivia.  Her paintings are sometimes funny, sometimes awkward, nearly always unsettling.

Dublin based Fergal Styles has exhibited widely and for him the image represents an irrational, compact impression of sensory and emotional information made up of feelings and imagination. He approaches painting in a very egalitarian way, no medium is ruled out even those usually not associated with painting, for him mediums/materials have their own cultural references or weight and  he values the associations these bring to the work. “I make art because I am optimistic” says Fergal “I am always hoping the work will spring something unexpected upon me.”

Running at South Tipperary Arts Centre, 8th March – 26th April 2024. https://www.southtippartscentre.ie/events/new-neighbours---olivia-odwyer-fergal-styles