December 17th, 2018

​Hi friends,
I was recently telling you about all the upcoming exhibitions I have over the Christmas period, well I have another to tell you about...and I very late blogging about it but you may have seen several mentions of it over on my social media feeds.

Sometime last August the Droichead Arts Centre in County Louth put out a call to artists of the North-East to submit works for a printmaking exhibition to their address for the attention of artist and curator Dorothy Smith.  The idea was to exhibit works exploring the many facets of contemporary printmaking including but not limited to etching, litho, screenprint, monoprint, lino etc. I submitted a small number of works for Dorothys consideration and am happy to report I was accepted into the show.  

Here are some of the detials: www.droichead.com/show/873599277

Delighted to hear my work "Un foo-king titled" (see left and detail image at bottom) was accepted However I was upset to realise the opening night was the only night of the year my darling hubbie asked me not to be busy as he and his team were booked for an industry awards night and had been nominated for a prize!  Well god damn, and blast was my first thought, along with something about having to dress formally and the injustice of it all!  But bless him hes been to every function, artists talk, exhibition and opening of an envelope I've asked of him so what's a girl to do (and yes I know I'm too old to refer to myself as a Girl- thanking you but I need to cheer myself along!)

Well what could I do but make my apologies to the Arts Centre and Dorothy and miss the opening night...We tarted up...They won (Yay - good nights fun I can tell you & I picked up a commission!) and the following morning on the way home from Dublin with my very pink hair and a slightly green face we visited the exhibition....IT IS SO GOOD!  I knew it would be and so I felt so bad I missed what I can only assume was a fantastic night, but what could I do"  The wealth of talent on the walls and ceiling (Yes seriously) was just breathtaking and as I write this and share the photos from the Facebook account of the evening I can also reveal two important news facts:

1)  This exhibition "Printworks" curated by Dorothy Smith on behalf of and showing in The Droichead Arts Centre, Drogheda, Co. Louth has just been given the nod of "IRISH TIMES CRITICS CHOICE"... I kid ya not!!!

2) Droichead has arranged a Talk and Tour of the exhibition with the 14 artists (including yours truly) selected and Curator Dorothy Smith for Thursday 31st January at 7:30pm. And a Youthreach programme of events has been added to accompony this exhibition including a series of workshops including one by me on Encaustic Monotype.

 (I'll see ya on the night of the talk - I won't be long back from residency and I'm desperate to hear the other artists involved discuss their work and Dorothys take on her choices) The selected artists are : Els Borghart, Adrian + Shane, Orlaith Cullinane, Declan Kelly, Robert Kelly, Jackie Hudson Lawlor, Rahpael Hynes, Aidan Flannagan, John Moloney, Kieran McNulty, Gary McGuire, Jebun Nahar and Niamh O'Connor, additional invited artists included  Debora Ando and Anthony Lyttle. 

The exhibition runs daily until 2nd March 2019 at The Droichead Arts Centre Drogheda, Louth..

So there you have it, Get yourselves into the Droichead Arts Centre and let me know what you think xx N.

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