In her practice, Michelle Hall is a gatherer and investigator, collecting ideas through writing, found objects, images, details and textures. This occurs over long periods of time, allowing space for materials and ideas to gestate and fortify. The process of exhibition making prompts the artist to take stock and harvest meaning from these gatherings, bringing them together to generate narratives that fall somewhere between fact, fiction and myth.
Through a series of drawing, text and moving image works, the artist explores themes of healing and transformation. For this body of work, Hall explores the symbol of the oar as a tool of navigation – an object that keeps things afloat and moving forward. Hall often looks to healing modalities (real or imagined) as a way to bring voice to the complex processes of the emotional world and experiences of the psyche. The exhibition takes place close to where the artist is from which brings a return to the radicle, through exploration of what lies at the root, and to consider new forms of grounding through creative practice.
Michelle Hall is an interdisciplinary visual artist from Dublin 15 and was one of four recipients of HOMEGROUND: Art, People, Place, Identity Research and Development Mentoring Awards 2020-2021, a Draíocht and Fingal Arts support programme for artists.
'(R)OARS' has been specially commissioned by Draíocht, as part of it's celebration of visual art in its 21st year.
Image details:
'Explosive Revelations (Tarot Reading 1994)'
pencil and book-cloth on paper, 23 x 30cm, 2020