Kevin Mooney | Beast | 2020 | Oil, distemper and acrylic on jute

For Culture night 2023 the Arts Council will once again proudly showcase a selection of works recently added to its extensive Visual Art Collection.

To celebrate the evening we are sharing some insight on each of the artist and artworks which will be on display:

‘My recent work traverses boundaries between history and myth. My paintings, and recently, sculptures originate from my curiosity about the histories of migration of Irish people and also my interest in the culture making actions of migrants in general. My parents were part of the mass exodus from Ireland in the 1950s, returning decades later. A background as a UK born Irish person, growing up in Ireland, has afforded me an "outsider" view of Irishness. This perspective has informed the way I have imagined an alternative Irish art history. Research into historical links between Ireland and the Caribbean has been a great source of fascination. The "void" in the records of these narratives and cultural interactions allows room for reinterpretation.

Historically, the constant waves of outward migration from Ireland were also an exodus of cultural memories, identities and traditions, as centuries of our visual culture vanished along with our emigrants. But migration can also be a key to the reimagining and retrieval of an art history- by reimagining the interaction of Irish culture with other cultures on emigrational journeys.

The materials of the work play with the notion of time. Clay, sticks, oil paint, rough jute, nails and varnish echo artists from earlier centuries working across mainstream European, African and folk art idioms. I want the works to appear both in this contemporary moment, and outside of time. Some appear aged and slightly broken down, as if artefacts from an unknowable era. The works play with imagery and languages from historically and temporally disparate cultures, compressing time and history into the immediate space of the canvas or the sculpture. With this compression of time, the work can be read as a reimagining of an alternative indigenous visual culture- a speculative art history projected into the cultural voids created by emigration and colonisation.’

Kevin Mooney is an Irish artist based in Sample-studios, Cork. Informed by mythology, history, and cultural migration, his work explores a speculative art history of the Irish diaspora.

The Arts Council Collection was established in 1962 and now comprises almost 1,350 works of modern and contemporary Irish art.

This year we are delighted to once again welcome audiences to the Arts Council buildings on Merrion Square to engage with some our most recent acquisitions.

Works by many of Ireland’s leading artists will be shown on the night including pieces by: Elizabeth Cope, Miriam De Búrca, Mollie Douthit, Justin Fitzpatrick, Marie Holohan, Helen Hughes, Catriona Leahy, Jialin Long, Kevin Mooney, Doireann Ní Ghrioghair, Emma Roche, Mark Swords, Amna Walayat and Orla Whelan.

As well as this glimpse into the Arts Council Collection for Culture Night, artworks can be seen all year round throughout the country as part of exhibitions and long term loans in public buildings such as hospitals, universities and schools.

Explore the Collection and more on our website here.