Brian O’Doherty, Language and Space: Rotating Vowels, Structural Plays and other Works

Brian O’Doherty, Language and Space: Rotating Vowels, Structural Plays and other Works
26.04.2018 - 16.09.2018

This exhibition will coincide with the 10th anniversary of The Burial of Patrick Ireland (1972-2008), a performance which took place at IMMA in which Patrick Ireland, the artistic alias adopted by Brian O’Doherty in 1972, was waked and buried, in a gesture of celebration of peace in Northern Ireland.

According to fellow artist Robert Rauschenberg, Brian O’Doherty/Patrick Ireland was “always a line man” and this display will celebrate his lifelong dedication to drawing, in particular to works related to his interest in the ancient Celtic Ogham script.

Since 1967, Ogham lines have inspired numerous works by O’Doherty/Ireland such as his ‘I’ Drawings, Vowel Poems, Ogham Sculptures, Vowel Grids, performances by speaker-performers or ‘vowelers’ of guttural sounds in the Structural Plays, wall paintings of the Ogham Cycle, and the room-size Rope Drawings in which Ogham lines have trajected into three-dimensional space.

This exhibition reflects O’Doherty/Ireland’s collaboration with Stoney Road Press to produce suites of limited editioned prints from the seminal drawings and works on paper by this artist.

The drawings and their related etchings, evoke the discourse between mind and body that has absorbed this extraordinary artist at all times. Here, as throughout his oeuvre, the artist encourages the conscious engagement of the senses and the intellect. Through the kinaesthetic effect of modulated colour, the dimension of line, the disposal of words and the dispersal of sounds we are galvanized towards a fundamental awareness of our being, agency and identity.

About the Artist
Brian O’Doherty / Patrick Ireland was a qualified medical doctor and emerging artist when he left Dublin in 1957 and now stands as a seminal figure in the history of Irish and International contemporary art. Renowned as an artist, writer, critic, television host, filmmaker and educator, over the past 60 years O’Doherty has invoked various identities in pursuit of his art, most notably Patrick Ireland, the artistic alias he adopted in 1972 and used for 36 years, as a patriotic protest against Bloody Sunday. In 2008 following the establishment of a power-sharing government in Northern Ireland, the identity and coffined effigy of Patrick Ireland was waked and buried in the 17th century formal gardens of the Irish Museum of Modern Art and the artist reassumed his birth name Brian O’Doherty.