See It ... Read It

Draíocht is pleased to present See It…Read It… an exhibition of art with words selected from the Arts Council Collection at the Hayward Gallery London. Organised in partnership with the British Council this exhibition features work by a number of Britain’s leading contemporary artists as well as a number of well- known international artists. See It…Read It… has been curated specifically for Draíocht’s main gallery space by Carissa Farrell, Visual Arts Officer.


The exhibition celebrates the use of text in visual art and includes work by artists long associated with this practice such as, David Austen, Sonia Boyce, Marion Coutts, Tracey Emin, Sylvie Fleury, Katharina Fritsch, Ian Hamilton Finlay, Jenny Holzer, Emma Kay, Tony Morgan, Simon Patterson, David Shrigley and Ross Sinclair.


The exhibition also marks a further stage in the growth of Draíocht’s national and international profile in addition to building on our strategic audience development work. The choice of work in this exhibition creates potential for new audiences at Draíocht whose interest may be literary, as the introduction to the exhibition suggests:


‘There is a lovely sense of satisfaction in experiencing this kind of two for the price of one offer, words and art together, giving you extra clues in interpreting whichever form you aren’t particularly familiar with. In Ireland it has been said and often written that visual art occupies the halfpenny place when it is comes to pride in national culture, even so much that literary sources are seen to give legitimacy to visual art rather than be complimented by it…. Perhaps, for Irish people, it is this familiarity with our literary heritage that gives potential for an exhibition such as this to foster curiosity and new ways of seeing contemporary art.’

Image: Tracey Emin