ADRIFT
A national touring exhibition by artist Els Dietvorst
Curated by Catherine Bowe and Karla Sánchez Zepeda
Wexford County Council & Wexford Arts Centre
15 October - 29 November 2024
Opening Launch: Saturday 12 October 2024
2pm - Wexford County Council
4pm - Wexford Arts Centre
All welcome to attend. Wine and refreshments served.
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Wexford Arts Centre is working collaboratively with Highlanes Gallery, Uillinn: West Cork Arts Centre,and Wexford County Council to tour the work of Els Dietvorst. The tour began at the Highlanes Gallery, Drogheda in 2023, continued at Uillinn: West Cork Arts Centre from March to May of this year, and will be shown concurrently in Wexford Arts Centre and Wexford County Council this Autumn.
Dance of the Thatcher (youtube.com) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=toODzt0j9-Q
In the two final installations of the tour ADRIFT, curators Catherine Bowe and Karla Sánchez highlight and revisit various pieces meaningful both to artist and the Irish individuals and communities she has been building relationships with over the last decade. Dietvorst will also present new pieces conceived specifically for these two very different venues. At Wexford Arts Centre, the artist will explore primeval feelings and ideas, playing with materials such as light, wood and clay. Wexford County Council will house a monumental piece about human resilience built in collaboration with sculptor Ciaran O'Brien and a small team of dedicated artists and craftswomen.
The title ADRIFT is a metaphor for how the artist sees our contemporary world as being not anchored but floating freely without a sense of purpose or direction. Showing an appreciation for what we usually consider to be different, undesirable, or inferior, Dietvorst explores life histories, interpersonal dialogues, migration and cultural differences, human dreams and desires, and the human condition. She pays specific attention to the position of the outsider and focuses her gaze – sometimes over a period of several years – on people and events that would otherwise go unnoticed.
An exhibition of work will run alongside ADRIFT in D'lush Cafe at Wexford Arts Centre from Tuesday 15 October to Sunday 3 November featuring work from fourth year art students from South East Technological University.
Els Dietvorst is a Belgian visual artist and filmmaker based in County Wexford. Her work has been shown and supported by organizations such as the Kaaitheatre, Brussels; Kunstenfestivaldesarts, Brussels; M HKA Museum of Modern Art, Antwerp; and BAK, Utrecht as well as internationally in New York, Casablanca, London, and Vienna. She has been awarded international prizes such as the Evens Arts Prize in 2017 and more recently the Belgian Art Prize. In 2021, as part of the Belgian Art Prize, she hosted two exhibitions concurrently – This is what you came for – in Bozar and CENTRALE for Contemporary Art, both in Brussels.
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For further information on ADRIFT or artist Els Dietvorst contact Catherine Bowe, Curator – Wexford Arts Centre on +353 (0)53 23764 or catherine@wexfordartscentre.ie.
Image credit: Els Dietvorst and Matt Whelan, The Dance of The Thatcher, 2019, digital film, 40 minutes.