Atmospheres: 1
Felt Map: Manorhamilton, experimental hand drawn animation, 4mins 43secs, Sound by Cathal Roche.
Atmospheres: 1
Drawing deCentered - Felicity Clear, Kiera O’Toole, Mary-Ruth Walsh
Exhibition Residency 2023
Exhibition: Friday 24th February- 15th April 2023
Leitrim Sculpture Centre, Manorhamilton, Co Leitrim.
Exhibition Statement:
Through diverse and expanded fields of drawing practices, Drawing deCentered explores Manorhamilton through a multi-perspective lens where the concept of Atmospheres is considered as 'Condition', 'Matter' and 'Affect'. Clear explores the micro local atmospheric conditions in Leitrim, O’Toole’s engages with atmospheres as spatialised feelings which register as ‘emotional vibrations through our felt bodily sense, and Walsh queries how we imagine and design spatial qualities for the city, countryside and wider landscape and the atmospheres they create.
O'Tooles experimental documentation materialises the non-representational aspects of our world by mapping the ‘emotional vibrations’ of spaces and in this case, Manorhamilton, Leitrim. The act of drawing is considered a way to intuitively document the emotional dimensions of everyday spaces and the resulting drawings are referred to ‘felt-maps’. The drawings attempt to record something that is neither a thing nor a quasi-thing but something more felt rather than thought. The aim is to address our relationship to the more than human world. When we detached from nature, we also detach from ourselves. No matter where we find ourselves, we are emotional affected by it, even if we are not conscious of it. Where we are matters. because we are deeply affected by where we are - It is in us and we are in it - "we are made of the same stuff" (Merleau-Ponty)
ESSAY; Atmospheres:1
Sean O'Reilly 2023
Director Leitrim Sculpture Centre, Ireland
Extract from exhibition essay for zine
"O'Toole's close attention to feelings, vibrations and bodies of sensation within specific environmental settings forms an open research enquiry in to how immanent flows of matter become co-active agents in the formation of the drawing. Through the force of an encounter with the unformed or deforming power of nature O'Toole's drawings trace correspondences with atmospheric conditions by following the movement and force of materials in the ongoing formation of place. Her itinerant, ambulant and highly charged drawing experiments consist in following vectoral flows across a sensory field tracing micro-intensities and singularities of matter instead of re-constituting its general form. In the present work her gestures, movements and spontaneous marks are first captured then reassembled within a stop-motion video animation. This visual polyphony was then harnessed by the composer and sound artist Cahill Roche who used it to generate a new sound work that was interlaced with the video in the final piece. In revealing the forces or intensities that lie behind sensations O'Toole draw us back to the genetic conditions and movements of matter that first form atmospheres and also create a sense of place"
Sean O'Reilly 2023
Director Leitrim Sculpture Centre, Ireland
Extract from exhibition essay for zine
"O'Toole's close attention to feelings, vibrations and bodies of sensation within specific environmental settings forms an open research enquiry in to how immanent flows of matter become co-active agents in the formation of the drawing. Through the force of an encounter with the unformed or deforming power of nature O'Toole's drawings trace correspondences with atmospheric conditions by following the movement and force of materials in the ongoing formation of place. Her itinerant, ambulant and highly charged drawing experiments consist in following vectoral flows across a sensory field tracing micro-intensities and singularities of matter instead of re-constituting its general form. In the present work her gestures, movements and spontaneous marks are first captured then reassembled within a stop-motion video animation. This visual polyphony was then harnessed by the composer and sound artist Cahill Roche who used it to generate a new sound work that was interlaced with the video in the final piece. In revealing the forces or intensities that lie behind sensations O'Toole draw us back to the genetic conditions and movements of matter that first form atmospheres and also create a sense of place"
Felt Map: Manorhamilton, hand drawn stop-motion animation, 3mins, 2023