Event by Uillinn: West Cork Arts Centre
Artist in Residence: Lisa Blas - Open Studio - Lisa Blas | Routes to Oceania | fighte fuaighte
Saturday, July 16, 2022 | 1:00 pm to 4:00 pm GMT
Skibbereen, County Cork, P81 VW98, Ireland
Phone: +3532822090 | Email: info@westcorkartscentre.com
As an artist-in-residence at Uillinn: West Cork Arts Centre during June-July 2022, I am working on a site-specific body of work that draws upon the Irish language, local color, weather, light and the history of Irish landscape painting. On July 23, I will exhibit paintings in the group exhibition, Fragments in Constellation, as part of the artist collective, Re:Group. On July 28, Dawn Studio will be on site, at a special location in West Cork where the sky meets water. I will host a painting workshop beginning at sunrise, free and accessible to the local community. Further details on Re:Group’s exhibition and registration for my public engagement workshop can be found via Skibbereen Arts Festival and Uillinn: West Cork Arts Centre.
Since March 2020, I have concentrated my artistic interest in the concept of the oculus, a portal of light connecting interior space to the outer environment. The shape emerged for me as I undertook Dawn Studio, an ongoing daily painting practice I commence at sunrise everyday. The paintings are made on mid-sized watercolor paper and aquaboard panels using watercolor, iridescent pigment, metallic ink and gouache, that inform larger paintings on canvas with acrylic ink, watercolor pencil, interference and acrylic paint.
In these early morning hours, I begin by looking out the windows at the changing light and color over the horizon and Hudson river: a meeting of sky and water that dramatically shifts through the seasons and weather. These views create multiple afterimages – residues of the morning light that remain in my eyes. Using fluid brushwork, I create curvilinear shapes with a glowing lacuna at the center. This gap, which I identify as an oculus, is an interior space that oscillates, attempting to merge with its surroundings. Its center is unstable, like the eye of a hurricane that changes shape or direction suddenly. These forms hover between abstraction and representation, yet refer distinctly to place.
Lisa Blas | Skibbereen, Ireland
July 12, 2022