Highlanes Municipal Art Gallery Abigail O'brien: with Bread

Highlanes Municipal Art Gallery

Abigail O’Brien: With Bread Abigail O’Brien With Bread

13 September – 16 November 2013 Published by Highlanes Gallery, September 2013, in an edition of 1,000

Exhibition Sponsorship: Exhibition Partners: Contents McCloskey’s Bakery, Drogheda, Traditional Artisan Bakery and home of Spiegel’s The Dock, Carrick-on-Shannon, Co. Leitrim Bagels and Skinny’s has generously sponsored the exhibition, catalogue and tour. Dates: 7 February – 5 April, 2014 As well as the ongoing financial support of the Arts Council and Drogheda Borough Limerick City Gallery of Art, Limerick Council, the project was also awarded a special Arts Council Touring Grant. Dates: January 2015 Foreword: Aoife Ruane, Curator/Director 4

Design: Fiona O’Reilly, On the Dot Design www.onthedotmultimedia.com Print: Nicholson & Bass www.nicholsonbass.com With Bread: keeping company with Abigail O’Brien, Dr Medb Ruane 6

Highlanes Municipal Art Gallery Laurence Street Bread and Alchemy, Theo Dorgan 8 Drogheda Co. Louth Index of Images 65 Ireland T. + 00 353 (0) 41 – 9803311 F. + 00 353 (0) 41 – 9803313 W. www.highlanes.ie E. [email protected] Drogheda Municipal Art Collection 72

Artist’s Acknowledgements 74

ISBN: 978-0-9572946-1-5 ©2013 Highlanes Gallery, the authors and the artist Artist’s CV 76 British Library Cataloguing in Publication data available. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without first seeking the written permission of the copyright owners and of the publishers.

2 3 Foreword

To the viewer, the images cannot be obviously linked with any particular bakery. Each Wherefore do ye spend money on that which is not bread?... Abigail O’Brien was born in Dublin in 1957. She studied fine art as a mature student, is named after an artist, a female artist, O’Brien says “because the image suggests Bakery, Drogheda, through baker and managing director Patrick McCloskey. In a Eat that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness. graduating in 1998 from the National College of Art and Design (NCAD), Dublin. Since then her work has earned numerous awards and accolades, and she has exhibited something to me about their work”. highly competitive and difficult market we are grateful for his belief in the project and its value. Thanks to Drogheda & District Chamber colleague and current, President Simon -Isaiah 55:2 consistently both in and outside Ireland over the last two decades. The second element is the bread sculptures - ethnic breads that have been put McCormack who made the key initial introductions. O’Brien’s work primarily foregrounds her identity as a woman. Belgian philosopher through a process of firing and silvering, their nourishing and life-giving properties now suspended forever. Their titles refer to monetary currency - Peso, Euro, and Pound - There are two outstanding essays in the catalogue from writer and psychoanalytic With Bread is an exhibition of photographs, sculpture/installation, and video by artist Luce Irigaray has said that “one must assume the feminine role deliberately” (Jung, and as objects of beauty O’Brien believes “they still have ‘currency’ …and may even practitioner Dr Medb Ruane and poet, novelist and prose writer Theo Dorgan. Abigail O’Brien, her first solo museum exhibition and monograph in Ireland since 2009. Irigaray, Individuation: Philosophy, Analytical Psychology, and the Question of the Feminine, 2008), in the struggle to find authentically female ways of speaking, have ‘value’ in their metal properties”. Sincere thanks to both writers for their time and creativity in the texts. Thanks also to journalist and writer Susan McKay for agreeing to open the exhibition. The exhibition continues a strand of solo shows for Highlanes Gallery including Citizen: dreaming and desiring that are free from male-centeredness. O’Brien’s practice The third and final element is a video projection titled Grande Dame, a three minute Anthony Haughey (2013); I am here; you are there: Kate Byrne (2013); Sarah Browne: also explores culture and everyday rituals, encompassing life, death, love, birth and piece capturing in slow motion a levain or sourdough starter at the moment of rising. The team at Highlanes Gallery are central to the development, installation, Second Burial at Le Blanc (2012); Samuel Walsh: The Coercion of Substance (2012); immortality. For O’Brien, this represents fecundity and fertility. communication and engagement of, and with this exhibition. I would like to thank Sinéad Ní Mhaonaigh (2011); Ten Miles Round: Jackie Nickerson (2010); Conflicting Siobhan Burke, Patrick Casey, Ian Hart, Siobhan Murphy and Hilary Kelly, and Account: Paul Seawright (2010); Shuffle: Richard Gorman (2010); and Eclipse of a An artist I have long admired, I first became aware of O’Brien’s practice while working The exhibition has been conceived not only for Highlanes Gallery, but for two other the team of invigilators and installation crew for their ongoing commitment and Title: Diana Copperwhite (2008). at the Irish Museum of Modern art, when The Last Supper (1995), one of her most important works was acquired to the Collection. When I began working at Highlanes partner venues, The Dock in Carrick-on-Shannon, and Limerick City Gallery of Art, enthusiasm. Primary school teacher Ann Burke has generously given of her time and both of which it will tour to in the coming eighteen months. We are grateful to curator/ advised on elements of our Primary School Programme and the school curriculum for While bread and the craft of making it are nearly as old as civilisation itself, Pain au Gallery in 2007, O’Brien had become resident in Co. Louth and accepted an invitation director’s Siobhan O’Malley and Helen Carey and anticipate interesting exhibitions, as this exhibition. Thanks also to Highlanes Gallery Board, in particular Chairman, Kevin levain was the first leavened bread, probably discovered in Egypt six thousand years to join the Board of the gallery, where she played a central role over a five year term. well as great discussion and engagement in their sites and with those who come to McAllister and Alison Lyons for their steadfast and strategic support for the work of ago. Abigail O’Brien’s interest in bread, its elemental properties, the magical process Her appointment as the first female Secretary of the RHA (Royal Hibernian Academy) the exhibition. Highlanes Gallery. that takes place in its making, its centrality in human daily life across race and culture in 2012 signalled the end of her time on Highlanes’ Board. and religion, as well as its familial, social and cultural importance (historically through As well as ongoing funding from Drogheda Borough Council and the Arts Council, Finally, there would be nothing without the work of the artist. Abigail O’Brien is one the female), and its rich symbolism, spans some twenty years. However, a mutual friend, artist Amanda Coogan prompted a suggestion of a future collaboration and exhibition; Abigail had been already working on this and another the project was awarded an Arts Council Touring Grant early in 2013, which has of the most important visual artists working in Ireland today. The value of her work enabled the large format exhibition concept, the national tour, this catalogue, and is immeasurable as is her ability to deliver to the highest standard even under the The work for this exhibition has developed and continued out of an earlier exploration body of work when I approached her to make an exhibition for Highanes Gallery…and accompanying public programme. We acknowledge this critical and special most challenging and difficult circumstances. Abigail is an inspiration; she is a true Kitchen Pieces – Confession and Communion (1998), from the exhibition The Seven she willingly agreed. financial commitment. alchemist, and it’s been a pleasure working with her. Sacraments, a major body of work which was created by her over eight years (1995-2003). With Bread includes three elements. The first is a series of framed photographs which have been taken in four bakeries in Ireland, McCloskey’s Bakery, Drogheda; Barron’s In tandem with this extra funding, we have been fortuitous in securing significant Bakery, Waterford; the Bretzel Bakery, and Il Valentino Bakery, both in Dublin. sponsorship for all elements of the exhibition from McCloskey’s Traditional and Artisan Aoife Ruane, Director, Highlanes Galler

4 5 With Bread: keeping company with Abigail O’Brien

Dr Medb Ruane

How do you make air stand up? In Abigail O’Brien’s With Bread, you create objects At base, it is about bread making as a ritual that crosses cultures, peoples and The emphasis on lived experience gives the work a conceptual groundedness derived The homage - femmage, perhaps - quits the slowly-eroding exceptionalist world of the and images to track how air mutates in different circumstances. Drape it with yeast, millennia. Lack of bread provokes hunger, famine, death. Too much enables cruelty in parts from feminist art practice, with its early manifesto that the personal is the capital -A artist - what Kiki Smith called ‘white, male, power, money’ - by honouring flour and water and it becomes bread, the stuff we eat, share and make dreams of. and greed. But bread is also about nourishing and loving, as it circulates from hand political, and its quest to explore the everyday’s rich terrains. No truck is held with forty-two female co-workers of various ethnic backgrounds, including the unstoppable Clad it in silver and the ‘dough’ is worth a fortune. O’Brien’s forensic journeys into to oven and from table to mouth and belly. “Love comes from the world of yum-yum”, hierarchies or notions of greatness, individualism and exceptionalism. It’s not about Grande Dame. This low-key act of commemoration mirrors the artist’s continuous everyday things picture ordinary materials serving something momentous. Her practice Lacan believed (Seminar XI: The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis, bread; it’s about what you do with it. references to friends and associates throughout her practice but also, pointedly, details the minutiae and lived experience of what were once called sacred events. The 1964). Understood as food and as money, bread evokes notions of exchange and rejects the use of alibis by portraying people as agents, not as actors. immediately post-Christian context in which she operates could muddy the strategic currency in human relationships and via the social justices/injustices flowing from ‘With’, the other key word in the exhibition’s title, suggests company (Latin: cum aspects of her work but rather than being a religious investigation, her eye is on the global markets. Less tangibly, it traces the body’s interventions on natural materials panis), companionship, questions of relating and how to nourish them. This So, wheat becomes dough, air stands up and, in parallel translations, is given the symbolic moments religion - and art - have often tried to articulate. and then metaphorises the magic of making air stand up into a discourse about art relationality is not solely aesthetic, not about soft-focus aspirationalism or ‘big hug’ status of art, whatever that is, by transforming into photograph and sculpture. Shiny, and transformation. ethics. Stark global change ecologically and economically make urgent a suite of beautiful objects cast from precious metals translate the artisans’ work into gorgeous Baptism (1995/6), her debut series, examined a child’s symbolic welcoming into issues, from the place of the artisan and artist to issues of hoarding/distributing assets artefacts that won’t rot or endure the messiness W.B. Yeats aimed to flee when, family and community with cut-glass precision - a miniature pram filled with salt Grande Dame (2013) shows a yeasty dough bubbling round and overflowing a plain and of nourishing those who are struggling with nothing and not-enough. Philosopher yearning for eternity, he imagined a hammered gold bird cast by Grecian goldsmiths spoke to people’s hopes and wishes, using ancient alchemical elements. The Seven glass jar, telling a simple story of material alchemy but also showing what happens Rosie Braidotti argues that the challenge is to promote affirmative politics which entail who would sing forever because it was outside time (Sailing to Byzantium, The Tower, Sacraments project (1995-2004) looked at such moments through the rituals and when there’s no limit or point of no return. “Creativity expands without a brake”, “…the creation of sustainable alternatives geared to the construction of social horizons 1928). Here, bread becomes a silvered bullion whispering, by the way, back to that utensils associated with them, through people attending and food they prepared. in mathematician Fernando Zalamea’s theory of change and decay as parallel of hope” because they critique technological determinism at the level of representation silver nitrate compound used in early photography. When childrens’ empty bellies Sometimes her palette used trinkets, other times, such as from The Ophelia Room orientations (Passages of Proteus, 2011), here synchronised through human eye (Powers of Affirmation, 2011: 267). don’t come first, this is a more desirable symbol of wealth than naked dough but (2000), steel and aluminium surfaces glittered with cold beauty, in Dublin’s morgue. and hand. there’s a cost. The nutritive and relational are stripped away in a lethal contrast that O’Brien nails down these narratives of relationality and interconnectedness through shows the high stakes between immortality and death. The global question of how to The images’ sheer polish embodied a sense of the still life tradition with its Photographs with intriguing titles play with tightly-contained images of dough that a pattern of naming that stitches the discourse of art and transformation into a live together now returns with a vengeance. uncompromising stress on perfection, here with a twist. The tradition’s impeccably- weirdly seeps or stains, yielding surfaces livid and knotted as flesh, sometimes discourse about women artists and symbolic recognition. While the work opens up wrought, immaculate and unsullied order was a defence against mortality, against looking amusingly erotic or downright repellent. The material squats. Human hands conversations from art and artisanship to science and technology, the titles pinpoint Dr Medb Ruane is a writer and psychoanalytic practitioner, based in Dublin. She has written as a what Samuel Beckett called ‘unrelieved viciousness’ and the unpredictability that knead it into vernacular forms from the artist’s experience. Here is Waterford blaa, a the imaginative milieu in which it breathes. Most of the artists made their names columnist with The Sunday Times, The Irish Times, and The Irish Independent, and as a critic in living and dying entails (Dante… Bruno. Vico.. Joyce’, Our Exagmination Round His fluffy bread, here’s turnover with a big crust, there are bread rolls, pretzels, a friend’s outside the Academy or so-called Great Tradition by positioning themselves as many catalogues and journals. She serves on the Mental Health Tribunals. Her current research is on the pathways between psychoanalytic, literary and visual cultures. Her latest publication Factification for Incamination of Work in Progress, 1929). In With Bread, however, sourdough with his proving basket, French fougasse baked as a Christmas treat, and nomads exploring film, video, photography, sound, performance, installation and appears in Theory on the Edge: Irish Studies and the Politics of Sexual Difference, ed. Giffney and O’Brien unravels those stark oppositions of order/disorder, beauty/ugliness, value/ her mother’s brown bread, whose never-quite-the-same taste is part of the artist’s architecture, much as O’Brien does. Sholdice (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013). worthlessness by working through a politics of process as profound continuity, family traditions. Like Proust’s remembered madeleines, they function in deeply visualised through creation, change and decay. personal ways.

6 7 Bread and Alchemy

Theo Dorgan

What do we think of, nowadays, when we think of alchemy? In an age of information but unnoticed, as the air is to humans and other mammals, as the sea is to fish. Yet All that we say of alchemy, we can say of art. A number of elements in this exhibition invited, in other words, to join in the alchemy of mind working with mind, attention overload, accustomed as we are to requiring quick answers to all questions, most consider, as Abigail invites us to do, the mystery of bread, how two ‘inert’ substances, make the identification explicit: you can observe the weirdly impressive business of working with attention in the boundless unfolding of human curiosity, the ceaseless people would rattle off something along the lines of “proto-science, the transmutation milled grain and water, transmute and transform when a third element, yeast, is yeast working through dough in a series of photographs that arrest the process, that working of our common imagination as we strive to understand this life of ours. of base metals into gold” and be content that they had exhausted the subject. introduced. Consider the role of the observant mind in this process, as in who it was offer us a literal snapshot of a complex chemical interaction at work. You can observe first noticed that a + b in the presence of c produces d. Consider how this process the process captured as it occurs in the flow of time. You can claim time for yourself The Sufis say that the presence of enlightened souls acts in a given society as a kind The commodification of knowledge, resting as it does on the cursed proposition that has been handed down, how it has varied and modified from one society to another, to allow the rich metaphorical hinterland of the mystery grow in your own mind and in of yeast. Enlightenment, its humble pursuit through work, is the proper business of time is money, demands of us that we confront questions now so as, essentially, to one epoch to the next, how what is discovered in one place is introduced, deliberately your own attention. the artist and an end result of art; it is also a gift that, like bread, acquires its deepest dismiss them with all possible speed. There is an unvoiced but everywhere dominant or by chance, into another place. Consider the artfulness of the baker, consider how and truest meaning when it is shared. We are invited here to become alchemists of belief that time spent in reflection, in patient inquiry, on the acquisition of knowledge two people using the same ingredients, even the same mixing bowls and ovens, will And you can consider what it might mean, when you see bread here transmuted, ourselves, to take our share of what alchemists have always and everywhere called, beyond the immediate and superficial, is somehow time wasted, and that when we produce two different breads. Consider the great gulf fixed between breads produced transformed in the alchemical process of casting, into precious metal. In this latter simply, ‘the great work’. spend time on such matters, someone, somewhere, must suffer unforgivable by the schooled human hand and the soulless, tasteless products of the machine case you might find yourself thinking of Midas, of how all that he touched turned financial loss. bakeries. Consider the presence of bread in our art, philosophy and common speech to gold — you may even catch your mind leaping, as mine did when I heard that Dublin 2013. as a source of metaphor, as a guide to those leaps of imagination that drive us - and story first as a child, to thoughts of how splendidly rich you would be if everything Information, easily acquired, supersedes knowledge, not least because the acquisition consider, too, the role bread and grain has played in our wars and in our politics, in you touched turned to precious metal - before being brought up short by the simple Theo Dorgan is a poet, novelist and prose writer. He is a member of Aosdána. of knowledge requires study, the investment of attention and time. And, to invoke the self-sufficiency of isolated homes and in the growth of villages, then towns and realisation that you would, of course, very soon starve to death. another cliché, we have become notoriously time-poor. cities whose first nucleus, always and everywhere, is the bakery. As indeed, we would very soon starve to death if it were not for our bakers and our Part of the business of art in our time is to refuse this glib dismissiveness, this Art, chemistry, tradition and innovation, talent and learning, all these and more are artists. When Abigail offers the individual photographs in this exhibition as a gesture knowingness that supersedes knowledge, and Abigail’s exhibition is, in large part, an involved in the alchemy of bread. Alchemy is a tradition with an impressive lineage, of homage to individual women artists she is making this connection plain, and yet attempt to challenge this headlong flight into assumptions so devoid of content that as rooted in philosophy as it is in the practical manipulation of the material world. It at the same time elusive, tantalising, as metaphors and truths should be. You do not they amount to no more than lazy dismissals. rests on a single basic assumption, that all manifestations of what we might call the need to know the work of, say, Dorothy Cross, Louise Bourgeois, Amanda Coogan, life force are interwoven one with another, that this world in which we find ourselves Tacita Dean or any of these other dedicatees in order to see what is in front of you, She has chosen to concentrate her attention, and therefore ours if we agree, on the is a plenum in which psyche, body and mind - and soul, if you are prepared to nor yet to grasp the connection between bread dough observed and the work of one simplest of alchemical processes, the intriguing transmutation of grain and water countenance the term - are mutually interdependent. of these artists - but you may be inspired to seek their work out, and perhaps even to into the bread that for much of our history on the planet has been humanity’s single revisit O’Brien’s work then, to see if you can imagine for yourself what it was in each most sustaining food. Literally, the staff of life. Breadmaking is an art that has been individual photograph that called to her mind the work of this artist or that. You are practiced for millennia, an art that by virtue of its very pervasiveness has become all

8 9 Abigail O’Brien: With Bread

10 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 Index of images

Shirin Neshat Grande Dame Eva Hesse Helen Chadwick front cover pg 13 pg 14 pg 15

Lamdachrome Print Lamdachrome Print Lamdachrome Print Lamdachrome Print 88 x 120 cm 88 x 120 cm 88 x 120 cm 88 x 120 cm

Dorothea Lange Kathy Prendergast Cindy Sherman Alice Maher pg 16 pg 17 pg 18 pg 19

Lamdachrome Print Lamdachrome Print Lamdachrome Print Lamdachrome Print 88 x 120 cm 88 x 120 cm 88 x 120 cm 88 x 120 cm

64 65 Méret Oppenheim Marina Abramovic Mary A. Kelly Kathe Kollwitz Jenny Saville Paula Rego Christine Borland Marie-Jo Lafontaine pg 28 pg 29 pg 30 pg 31 pg 20 pg 21 pg 22 pg 23 Lamdachrome Print Lamdachrome Print Lamdachrome Print Lamdachrome Print Lamdachrome Print Lamdachrome Print Lamdachrome Print Lamdachrome Print 88 x 120 cm 88 x 120 cm 88 x 120 cm 88 x 120 cm 88 x 120 cm 88 x 120 cm 88 x 120 cm 88 x 120 cm

Tracey Emin Frida Kahlo Judy Chicago Louise Bourgeois Sarah Lucas Rebecca Horn 18 Pula 22 Lek pg 24 pg 25 pg 26 pg 27 pg 32 pg 33 pg 34 pg 35

Lamdachrome Print Lamdachrome Print Lamdachrome Print Lamdachrome Print Lamdachrome Print Lamdachrome Print Lamdachrome Print Lamdachrome Print 88 x 120 cm 88 x 120 cm 88 x 120 cm 88 x 120 cm 88 x 120 cm 88 x 120 cm 88 x 120 cm 88 x 120 cm

66 67 3,000 Shekels 150 Balboa each 60 Dinar 240 Euro Nan Goldin Beverly Semmes Maya Lin Mona Hatoum pg 36 pg 37 pg 38 pg 39 pg 44 pg 45 pg 46 pg 47

7 Kopeck & 90 Santeem 300 Krone Kara Walker Siobhán Hapaska Barbara Kruger Amand Coogan Tacita Dean Rebecca Horn pg 40 pg 41 pg 42 pg 43 pg 48 pg 49 pg 50 pg 51

68 69 Mary Kelly Shadi Ghadirian Grande Dame Rachel Whiteread Camille Souter Vivienne Roche Janet Mullarney pg 52 pg 53 Moving Image pg 56 pg 61 pg 62 pg 63 Lamdachrome Print Lamdachrome Print pg 54-55 Lamdachrome Print Lamdachrome Print Lamdachrome Print Lamdachrome Print 88 x 120 cm 88 x 120 cm Video 88 x 120 cm 88 x 120 cm 88 x 120 cm 120 x 88 cm

Georgia O’Keeffe Dorothy Cross Kiki Smith Alanna O’Kelly pg 57 pg 58 pg 59 pg 60

Lamdachrome Print Lamdachrome Print Lamdachrome Print Lamdachrome Print 88 x 120 cm 88 x 120 cm 88 x 120 cm 88 x 120 cm

70 71 Highlanes Gallery, Drogheda Municipal Art Collection

The Drogheda Municipal Art Gallery was founded by the late Bea Orpen, HRHA and Benefactors Highlanes Gallery her husband CEF (Terry) Trench together with the Municipal Art Gallery and Museum Anglo Printers Committee in the mid-1940s. The collection dates from the middle of the eighteenth Dónall Curtin Curator/Director: Aoife Ruane; Operations and Security Manager: Patrick Casey; Opened in 2006, Highlanes Gallery received funding from Drogheda Borough Council, century and is housed at the gallery in former Franciscan Friary Church on Laurence Drogheda Grammar School Exhibitions and Installation Officer: Ian Hart; Accounts and Administration: Louth County Council, and the project was part-funded by the European Union Street, Drogheda. Drogheda & District Chamber of Commerce Siobhan Burke; Duty Officer/Reception: Siobhan Murphy; Duty Officer/Public through the Interreg IIIA Programme managed for the Special EU Programmes Body Sheelagh Duff Programmes: Hilary Kelly; Housekeeping: Myroslava Bodgan by East Border Region Interreg IIIA Partnership, the International Fund for Ireland, and Artists represented in the Collection Michael Flanagan, Rennicks Sign Manufacturing Louth County Council – LED Task Force under EU Peace II Programme and part- Joan Mary Bloxam, Muriel Brandt, Rene Brault, Thomas Brezing, Elaine Byrne, Erica Il Mary Fay *Building Maintenance: Frank Curran *Gallery Invigilators: Gerry Kierans, Ursula financed by The Irish Government under The National Development Plan. Cane, John Cassidy , Richard Caulfield, Simon Coleman, Helen Colvill, Sylvia Cooke- Bernard Gogarty McCloskey, Irene Nelson, Laura Gramzow, Joseph Flanagan, Andrew Brady Collis, Diana Copperwhite, James Humbert Craig, John Crampton Walker, Gerard Brian Hillen-Moore Highlanes Gallery is supported by *FÁS Community Employment Project through Highlanes Gallery and F.E. McWilliam Gallery & Studio, Banbridge in Co. Down were Dillon, Kitty Elliott, Beatrice Elvery, Laurence Fagan, Pat Griffith, May Guinness, Brian Niall & Valerie Lund Millmount Cultural Development Services developed together through the Intereg IIIA Programme, and continue to share Hegarty, Letitia Hamilton, Jack P. Hanlon, Michael Healy, Grace Henry, Nathaniel Lorcan Lyons & Associates, Architects exhibitions and resources. Hill, Charles Holroyd, Evie Hone, Mainie Jellett , John F. Kelly, Gereon Krebber, Dany Peter Lyons Board of Management Lartigue, Marianne Lucy Le Poer Trench William, John Leech, L.S. Lowry, Thomas Alison Lyons Chairman: Kevin McAllister Board: Seán Cotter, Kieran Lawless, Alison Lyons, Joan Markey, Clare Marsh, Ferenc Martyn, Pamela Matthews, Richard Moore, James Kevin McAllister Martin, Róisín McAuley, James McKevitt, Sarah O’Hagan, Fr. Ailbe Ó Murchú, Paul McNeill Whistler, William Mulready, Sinéad Ní Mhaonaigh, Jackie Nickerson, Bea Caroline McBride Smyth, Brona O’Reilly Orpen, Andrew O’Connor, Anderson Paisley, Mervyn Peake, Sarah Purser, Nano Reid, Dr B. O’Connell Gabriele Riccierdelli, Hilda Roberts, Henry Roper-Curzon, George William Russell, Dr Conor O’Shea and Family Board of Directors Tasmin Snow, Mary Swanzy, Armelle Skatulski, Charles Tyrrell and Herbert Webb. Scoil Bhríde N.S., Bóthar Brugha,Drogheda Chairman: Joan Martin Board: Brian Harten, Kieran Lawless, Róisín McAuley, Joseph Sacred Heart Secondary School, Drogheda McGuinness, Brona O’Reilly Patrons Smyth & Son Solicitors The Family of Bea Orpen and CEF (Terry) Trench, Founders of the Drogheda Municipal Paul Smyth Art Collection Margaret Startup Brendan and Bernadine McDonald Patrick Walsh

72 73 Artist’s Acknowledgements

I am very grateful to Fiona O’Reilly at On the Dot Design for her sensitive design of this Every project has to have a good leader and in this regard I would like to thank Aoife Home baking is a wonderful skill and gift to those of us around you. Thank you to book. Also, many thanks to Lar Thompson for tweaking some of the sculpture images. Ruane, Curator and Director of Highlanes Gallery, for her vision, constant commitment my mother Iris O’Brien for teaching me how, and to Elaine and Vincent Hartigan for and untiring encouragement. continuing the lessons. Thank you to Don Hawthorn and the team at the specialist printers Nicholson & Bass for the care and time they have given this project. To all the staff of Highlanes Gallery for your enthusiasm, especially Siobhan Burke, A very warm embrace to Medb Ruane and Theo Dorgan for the great essays which Siobhan Murphy, Patrick Casey and Hilary Kelly, and a special thank you to the are insightful, thoughtful and most importantly very readable. The questions that arise during the making of the work are very important and technical team for your careful installation of the work, led by Ian Hart. sometimes more interesting than my answers. In this regard I would like to mention A project like this has had the support and assistance of many people in order to be Mary A. Kelly, David Galloway and Noel Kelly for your participation and for asking Thank you to the Board of Highlanes Gallery especially Kevin McAllister and Alison realised. I am very grateful to everyone who took part in this process. the questions. Lyons for their stellar support. A big thank you to Mark Paisley in Fire for the carefully produced prints, and to Ciara Thanks to Richard Moore for connecting me to Fr Joe of St. Mary’s Parish Church, Warm thanks to Helen Carey at Limerick City Gallery of Art, and Siobhan O’Malley at Gallagher for extra assistance during the silly season. who, together with Sacristan Frankie Taaffe facilitated access to the church bells, and The Dock. I am thrilled to be working with you both. to Liam Denning for spraying the tables at short notice. Mathew Peck at BLOC sourced the frames, and with Stephen Healy did a beautiful

Thank you to the bakers I went to visit in order to make my photographs. I had no job, many thanks. Thank you to the PR team of Sinead Doherty and Gerry Lundberg for putting the idea what to expect and had great fun in the process. word out. Thank you also to Rico Slabozcs Horwath for your help moving the bread sculptures Barron’s is the oldest bakery in Ireland and Esther Barron and Joe Prendergast were up and down to Dundalk. I am also very grateful to the Arts Council of Ireland for the additional financial support hugely hospitable and dare I say it, warm as toast. of the With Bread exhibition and national tour. Not forgetting Sean Magennis for all his help with the props. I spent many engrossing evenings in the artisan bakery of Owen and Valentina Doorley A special thanks also to my family for making me laugh and reducing the stress. Larry In terms of the sculptures, thank you to Leo Higgins at CAST and to his super at Grand Canal Quay, Dublin. gets a big mention here! craftspeople, Emer Byrne and Ray Delaney. Another landmark bakery is the Breztel in Portobello, Dublin and a special thank you to My biggest thanks goes to Hugh Bradley, my Darling Man, for his unerring generosity Michael Scott did the silver plating and I would like to thank him for his commitment William Despard and all the bakers there for your time and support. and huge support throughout this process. His belief in my work is soul food. and tireless efforts on my behalf. Last but not least, I would like to thank Patrick McCloskey at McCloskey’s Traditional With Bread is for you. Thank you to Barry Lynch for your patient and careful edit of the Grande Dame video. Artisan Bakery, Drogheda for not alone giving me access to his beautiful bakery but for his very generous sponsorship of the show. Abigail O’Brien

74 75 Abigail O’Brien 2000 2011 2008 from The Ophelia Room - Extreme Unction Galerie Bugdahn und Kaimer, Apertures and Anxieties - artists celebrate 300 years of Trinity College School of Summer Interval 08 Galerie Bugdahn und Kaimer, Düsseldorf, Germany www.abigailobrien.com Düsseldorf, Germany Medicine, RHA, Royal Hibernian Academy, Gallagher Gallery, Dublin, RHA 178th Annual Exhibition, RHA, Royal Hibernian Academy, Gallagher Gallery, from Baptism Sculpture Court, Edinburgh College of Art, Edinburgh, Scotland 15 November -21 December Dublin, February Solo Exhibitions How to Butterfly a leg of Lamb a collaboration with Mary Kelly, Edinburgh Arts Festival Christmas Show ArtCatto Gallery, Loule, Portugal, 10 December - January (2012) Obra Nabarmenenak /Obras Fundamentals Sala Kubo-Kutxa, San Sebastian, Spain, 2015 With Bread Limerick City Gallery of Art, spring 1999 Christmas Show Solomon Fine Art Gallery, Dublin, 1 December - January 2012 October 2007 - January 1008 2014 With Bread The Dock, Carrick-on-Shannon, 7 February – 5 April Kitchen Pieces - Confession and Communion Galerie Stadtpark, Krems, Austria 7:42, Irish Contemporary Art Lapua Museum of Art, Lapua Finland. Group exhibition 2007 with Mary Kelly, Seán Cotter and Thomas Brezing 2013 With Bread Highlanes Gallery, Drogheda, Co. Louth, How to Butterfly a Leg of Lamb, a collaboration with Mary Kelly, The Concourse, RHA 177th Annual Exhibition, RHA, Royal Hibernian Academy, Gallagher Gallery, 13 September - 16 November Dun Laoghaire Rathdown County Council, County Dublin 14.12.2011 - 26.2.2012 Christmas Group Show Solomon Fine Art Gallery, Dublin, Dublin November - December 2012 Air Fix Days Peppercanister Gallery, Dublin, October 1998 Gestures of Infinity Kultutzentrum bei den Minoriten, Graz, Austria Still Peppercanister Gallery, Dublin, September 2011 Temperance RHA, Royal Hibernian Academy, Gallagher Gallery, Foyer, Dublin, Kitchen Pieces - Confession and Communion Galerie Bugdahn und Kaimer, 2006 January – April Düsseldorf, Germany Cast 25 James Wray Gallery, Belfast, 1 - 26 July Einfach So Galerie Bugdahn und Kaimer, Düsseldorf, Germany 2010 Temperance Galerie Bugdahn und Kaimer, Düsseldorf 1996 Cast 25 Solomon Gallery, Dublin, May RHA 176th Annual Exhibition (invited artist) RHA, Royal Hibernian Academy, Gallagher 2009 Temperance 2009, Letterkenny Municipal Arts Centre, Co. Donegal Baptism Old Museum Arts Centre, Belfast, Northern Ireland Altered Images in association with the Irish Museum of Modern Art, IMMA, Letterkenny Gallery, Dublin Regional Cultural Centre, Co. Donegal, 17 May - 15 June 2008 Bella 2007 Galerie Bugdahn und Kaimer, Düsseldorf, Germany Man Eating Cream Bun installation, Habitat, Dublin Ten Years in the Making an Exhibition of Art from the State Buildings, 1995 - 2005, 181st RHA Annual Exhibition Ely Place, Dublin, 24 May - 30 July Farmleigh, Dublin 2007 Bella Rubicon Gallery, Dublin Baptism Häagen Dazs/Temple Bar Gallery (Solo Award) Dublin Three Colours / Red a collaboration with Mary Kelly, SOMA Contemporary, Waterford, National Self-Portrait Collection University of Limerick, Limerick 2006 Confirmation- Martha’s Cloth 2004, Gallerie Bugdahn und Kaimer, April - May Pulse Contemporary Art Fair New York, USA Düsseldorf, Germany Group Exhibitions Altered Images Crawford Art gallery, Cork, 14 February - 29 April Art Rotterdam Holland, Netherlands 2005 2013 Children get choosy with IMMA Wexford Arts Centre 22 March - 9 April 2005 Fortitude John David Mooney Foundation, Chicago RHA Annual Exhibition RHA, Royal Hibernian Academy, Gallagher Gallery, Dublin, 2010 Happy Holiday Rubicon Gallery, Dublin Garden Heaven - Holy Orders (2001 – 2003) Centre Culture Irlandais, Paris, France May - August Summer Interval’10 Gallerie Bugdahn und Kaimer, Düsseldorf, Germany Bread Matters West Cork Arts Centre, Skibbereen, Co. Cork The Seven Sacraments (1995 – 2004) RHA, Royal Hibernian Academy, Gallagher Janus Peppercanister Gallery, Dublin, 17 January – 9 February Altered Images Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, June - August The Eye of The Storm IMMA Collection, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin Gallery, Dublin Handicraft. Materials and Symbolism Museum Kunst der Westküste, Alkersum/Föhr, Sacred Dock Off-site, Enniskillen, Curator Linda Shevlin, June - July Vita Activa Rubicon Gallery, Dublin Germany, March 2004 Let them Luv’ Cake Cake Contemporary, Dublin, March 2010 2004 2012 Tir na nÓg New works from the IMMA Collection, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin Arts The Curragh Army Camp, Co. Kildare 2009 - 2010 The Seven Sacraments (1995 – 2004) Haus der Kunst, Munich, Germany 7:42 The Cable Factory, Kaapelitehtaan Valssaamossa, Helsinki, 9 - 24 March Banquet Exhibition RHA, Royal Hibernian Academy, Gallagher Gallery, Dublin 2009 The Seven Sacraments (1995 – 2004) Kunstverein, Lingen, Germany 7:42 Highlanes Gallery, Drogheda, Co. Louth, Ireland May-September From a Collection - For a Collection Galerie Bugdahn und Kaimer, Düsseldorf, Altered Images County Museum, Clonmel, Co. Tipperary, in association with the Germany 2003 Ateliers und Kitchen, Laboratories of the Senses Martha Herford, Herford, Germany, The Rag Tree Series Rubicon Gallery, Dublin May -September Irish Museum of Modern Art, IMMA, 19 June – 5 August In the time of Shaking Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin The Rag Tree Series Galerie Bugdahn und Kaimer, Düsseldorf, Germany RHA Annual Exhibition Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin, May – September Another Island, Contemporary Irish Art The American Historical Society, New York, Art Brussels, Paris Photo. Fiac Paris, Art Cologne March 2001 Kinsale Arts Festival July 2003 How to Butterfly a leg of Lamb a collaboration with Mary Kelly, Galerie Bugdahn und Paris Photo Paris, France Kaimer, Düsseldorf, Germany Child in Time The Gemeentemuseum, Helmond, Holland Art Cologne, Basil Art Forum

76 77 2002 1998 Random Access Video Training Symposium, Sculptors’ Society Ireland, 1998 Some Trees published by Paul Andriesse for the Douglas Hyde Gallery, Dublin 2004 Lerse Kunst uit de Collectie van het Museum Modern Art Te Dublin Stedelijk EV+A 98 Limerick City Gallery of Art, Limerick Arts Council of Ireland, Visual Arts Bursary, 1997/1998 Currents published by The Office Of Public Works, 2004 Museum, Belgium Art Forum, Berlin Arts Council of Ireland, Materials Award, 1996 Career Development, Abigail O’Brien The Visual Arts Sheet, page16, issue 5, 2004 Stories Haus der Kunst, Munich, Germany Novisimos, Cortometrajes Mexicanos, Recientes en Cine y Video Sala Luis Buñuel Artists’ Work Programme (Residency), Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, 1996 Stories text by Stephanie Rosenthal and essays by Söke Dinkla, Christoph Hochhäusler, Paris Photo, Basil Art Forum, and Art Cologne CCC/Centro Nacional de las Artes, Mexico, a collaboration with Javier de la Garza NCEA National Student of the Year Award, N.C.A.D, 1995 Thomas Jäger and Matias Martinez, pub. by Haus der Kunst, Munich, 2002 2001 Passport Exchange; (Ex) Change National Polish Museum of Contemporary Art, Temple Bar Galleries and Häagen Dazs Solo Award, Unshärferelation, Fotografie als Dimension der Malerie published by Hatje Cantz, Zacheta, Warsaw, Poland text by Peter FitzGerald, Das Weltliche ins Sakrale, (p.21), 2000 From the Poetic to the Political Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin Temple Bar Gallery & Studios, 1995 “Zwischenraum # 4” Arbeiten mit Fotografie Galerie Bugdahn und Kaimer, N.C.A.D. Postgraduate Show Dublin City Gallery, The Hugh Lane, Dublin, June Installation Programme 1999, published by Dunlaoire Rathdown, essay by Abigail Düsseldorf, Germany 1997 O’Brien and Mary Kelly Collections Basil Art Forum, Art Cologne Passport Exchange (Ex) Change, Temple Bar Gallery, Dublin The Challenge of Power essay by Siun Hanrahan, published by Adapt, Limerick 1999 National Self-Portrait Collection, University of Limerick, Ireland 2000 Banquet Exhibition RHA, Royal Hibernian Academy, Gallagher Gallery, Dublin Lautlose Gegenwart, Das Stilleben in der Zeitgenossischen Fotografie Staatliche Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, Ireland Kunsthalle Series Elke Dröscher Galerie, Hamburg, Germany Figuration, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin Office of Public Works, Ireland Baden-Baden, catalogue essay by Dr Jessica Mueller 1999 Art Cologne, Basil Art Forum 1996 University College Limerick, Ireland Irish Art Now - From the Poetic to the Political essays by Declan McGonagle, Fintan Der Monokulare Blick Kunstverein Lingen, Lingen, Germany Waiting Spaces Sheriff Street Post Office, site-specific work, Dublin The Caldic Collection, Rotterdam, Denmark O’Toole and Kim Levin, published by Independent Curators International, New York, in Zwischen – Raum Galerie Seitz und Partner, Wielandstr, Berlin, Germany Oriel Mostyn Open Llandudno, Wales association with the Irish Museum of Modern Art, 1999 Museum of Modern Art, Vienna, Austria Zwischenraum # Editionen und Multiples Galerie Bugdahn und Kaimer, Düsseldorf, Iontas Sligo, travelling to Dublin, Limerick and Derry MA Fine Art Degree Show 1998 National College of Art and Design, published by European Central Bank, Frankfurt, Germany Germany Dublin City Gallery, The Hugh Lane, text by Peter FitzGerald, Kitchen Pieces -Confession Goldman Sachs, London, UK Unschärferelation Kunstverein Freiburg im Marienbad, Germany /Travelling, tour to Awards and Communion, (p.19), 1998 Kunstmuseum Heidenheim and Stadtgalerie Saarbrücken Private Collections, Europe and North America Figuration, Works from the Collection of The Irish Museum of Modern Art text by Arts Council of Ireland, Touring Grant (With Bread, Highlanes Gallery on tour) 1999 Catherine Marshall, Curator of the Collection, 1997 2013 -2015 Irish Art Now: From the Poetic to the Political, 1999 - 2001 travelling U.S. exhibition, Representing Women: An Interview with Kiki Smith by Abigail O’Brien, in Thought Arts Bursary, Louth County Council (Create Louth) 2010 Selected Publications organised by I.C.I. New York and I.M.M.A. Dublin Lines, ed. by Sue McNab, published by National College of Art and Design, 1996 Elected Full Member Royal Hibernian Academy, Ireland 2010 7:42, Irish Contemporary Art, published by Lapua Art Museum, 2011 Silent Presence: Contemporary Still-Life Photography Staatliche Kunsthalle, Baden- Baptism, Häagen Dazs/Temple Bar Gallery Solo Award catalogue, essay by Medb Text by Katherine Waugh, editors Kirsi-Maria Tuomisto and Esa Honkimaki Baden and Bielefelder Kunstverein (2000) Culture Ireland Exhibition Bursary 2005 /2008 Ruane, 1996 Creative Ireland - The Visual Arts, Contemporary Irish Arts, 2000 - 2011. Editors, The Challenge of Power Limerick City Gallery, Limerick, November The Solomon Sculpture Prize, 2008 EV+A 96, EV+A 98 and EV+A 99, catalogues Noel Kelly and Seán Kissane, published by Visual Artists Ireland Berlin Art Forum, Basil Art Forum Public Art Award, Donegal County Council, 2007/2008 Temperance essays by David Galloway and John Cunningham, published by Associate member of the Royal Hibernian Academy, Ireland, 2006 Perspective 99 Ormeau Baths Gallery, Belfast Letterkenny Cultural Centre, Letterkenny, Co Donegal Positions Held Culture Ireland Exhibition Bursary, 2005 EV+A 99 Limerick City Gallery, Limerick Altered Images essay by Cliodhna Shaffrey, The Organisation of Hope, published by 2013 Cultural Relations Committee of Ireland Award, 2003 Les Fleur du Mal Galerie Seitz von Werder, Wielandstr.34, Berlin, Germany The Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin 2009 Secretary of the Royal Hibernian Academy, RHA Arts Council of Ireland, Visual Arts Bursary, 2003 The IMMA Collection, editor Marguerite O’Molloy, published by The Irish Museum of Board member IVARO Project Studio, Temple Bar Gallery and Studios, 2001/2002 Modern Art, Dublin, 2005 Arts Council of Ireland/Aer Lingus Art Flight Award 2000 and 2001 Artist Notes, Some thoughts on The Seven Sacraments by Abigail O’Brien, Arts Council of Ireland, Visual Arts Bursary, 2000 January 2005 Residency at the Tyrone Guthrie Centre at Annaghmakerrig, 1999 Abigail O’Brien, The Seven Sacraments and The Ritualised Daily Life essays by EV+A Prize 1999 Stephanie Rosenthal, Ciaran Benson and Pater Friedhelm Mennekes, published by Haus der kunst and Steidl, 2004

78 79 Exhibition Details

Highlanes Gallery Friday 13 September - Saturday 16 November, 2013 Laurence Street Drogheda Co. Louth W: www.highlanes.ie T: +353(0)41-9803311 F: +353(0)41-9803313 Curator/Director: Aoife Ruane Opening hours: Monday-Saturday 10.30am-5.00pm Closed: Sundays Open: October Bank Holiday Weekend, open Sunday 27 October, Monday 28 12.00-5.00pm

Irish Tour 2014-2015 The Dock Friday 7 February – Saturday 5 April 2014 St. George’s Street Carrick on Shannon Co. Leitrim W: www.thedock.ie T: +353(0)71-9650828 Curator/Director: Siobhan O’Malley Opening hours: Tuesday-Saturday 10.00am-6.00pm, Closed Mondays

Limerick City Gallery of Art January 2015 Carnegie Building Pery Square Limerick W: www.gallery.limerick.ie T: +353(0)61-310633 F: +353(0)61 310228 Curator/Director: Helen Carey Opening hours: Monday-Tuesday-Wednesday-Friday 10.00am-5.30pm Thursday 10.00am-8.30pm, Saturday 10.00am-5pm, Sunday 12.00-5.00pm, Closed Bank & Public Holidays