Working in tandem from across the divide

The Son of the Man who Saves the World is a two-person exhibition, which goes on display at the Courthouse Gallery Ennistymon on Friday at 8pm.
The exhibit features works that playfully engage with notions of authorship, collaboration, derivative work and pizza by Jim Ricks and Andrew Salomone. 
Despite having not worked directly together since 2006, both Ricks and Salomone have pursued similar art practices after attending the Burren College of Art Masters programme. They both use equal parts humour, approximation and appropriation to create work and have much in common as artists, making their own highly fallible versions of things.
By coincidence, they both applied, separately, to work with the Courthouse Gallery many years ago and, about three years ago, they were contacted to have a two-person show. The duo decided to work in tandem to create the exhibition, each expressing his own practice, yet responding to one another.
The title is a translation of the sequel to a Turkish film more commonly known as Turkish Star Wars. The film used, without permission, the battle scenes from Star Wars in a completely unrelated way to fit their own narrative, which is not unlike the way that Ricks and Salomone each make their own work.
Ricks will be producing an idea Salomone came up with in 2006. Andrew has no recollection of this idea but it will be a series of paintings that are reproductions of artwork found in the Simpsons TV series.
Meanwhile, Salomone will be creating works from his studio in Brooklyn, New York and will take into consideration the distance both between him and the show. Works in development are the latest in a series of conceptualist pizza deliveries and significantly use a hacked knitting machine to create Rubberbandits wool balaclavas, a custom made jumper to be worn on the opening night and a range of other knitted items. He will also include video and photo documentation of previous works.
Jim Ricks earned his MFA from the National University of Ireland, Galway/Burren College of Art programme and received his BFA from the California College of the Arts. He is originally from California but has lived in Ireland for nearly eight years and currently has a studio in Dublin.
Originally from Southern California, Andrew Salomone also received an MFA from the National University of Ireland and has exhibited throughout the count. He currently lives and works in Brooklyn.
The exhibition runs until April 11 and the gallery is open to visitors from Tuesday to Saturday from 12noon to 4pm.