To Never Look Away

TØN Dublin is delighted to present the exhibition To Never Look Away which brings together six visual artists whose work and practice are politically, socially engaged and motivated. The themes and subjects in their work span that of protest, labour, the migrant crisis, racism and matters of war, conflict and the media.

As artists - Rachel Fallon, Joy Gerrard, Claire Halpin, Myra Jago, Paul Mac Cormaic and Amna Walayat are images makers, using their individual visual language to mediate the saturation of media images, scrolled, liked and shared that we are somewhat inured to and to try and make sense of it through what they make. There is something about the artist sitting with the work, meticulous, painstakingly painting, making, mediating on these images.

As poets – Fióna Bolger and Nasouh Hossari were invited to contribute poems that respond to the exhibition. Their selected poems as texts and translations are installed as artworks, reflecting the prescient themes of language and memory in the exhibition.

There is an onus, the role of the artist as bearing witness, testimony – I was there, I saw, I recorded. It is the task of the artist to ask important questions of society and the world around us. And to be cognisant of the artworks they put into the world. They have to matter.

As curator - the aesthetic and what connects each of these artists’ work and practice is their engagement, commitment in using traditional materials and means from ink on paper, oil on gesso on canvas, gold leaf to cast iron. They are makers, hands on artists immersed in the tools and materials of their craft and trade. We are drawn into their work in a way that there is a familiarity and a luring in by the beauty of the painted surface, the hand drawn detail of the cast material to realise there is a deeper meaning or message to their work.