Circus comes to Ennistymon

CIRCUS Europe: an international collaboration featuring poetry and images, is getting underway at the Courthouse Gallery in Ennistymon this Saturday and will continue until February 1.
The official opening takes place with a reading and book launch at 4pm, followed by the launch of the exhibition at 5pm.
The exhibition includes eight collages by Dutch artist Machteld van Buren. The eight large collages illustrate how the struggle for survival is being waged in various European countries.
Eight poets were invited to offer their interpretation of the images. Four of these are Irish, Jo Slade, Frank Golden, Jessie Lendennie and Patrick Chapman, while the other four are Dutch; Arnoud van Adrichem, Martin Reints, Lieke Marsman and Peter van Lier. Clare-based publisher Salmon Poetry is publishing a booklet of this project in English.
Machteld van Buren is an established artist and her work is in the collections of the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, the Centraal Museum in Utrecht and the Fries Museum in Leeuwarden.
In this project, she reflects on the tensions and uncertainties that exist in the present-day European Union which, although it is presented under the banner of a common flag, has always been a patchwork of independent nations.
The collages explore how the struggle for survival is being waged in various countries. Most of the countries are depicted as an animal; the body consists of a map onto which the realistic head of an animal has been superimposed.
Interestingly, Germany is portrayed as a vulture, while Britain is portrayed with a number of horse’s heads, which form part of the landscape. The awkward juxtaposition of these figures suggests that the UK is not only struggling with its position within the EU but is also divided by internal strife.
Also at the Courthouse Gallery, an exhibition by Sarah Lundy will be on shown from this Saturday until the start of February.
Ms Lundy is a Clare-based visual artist and curator who has exhibited in selected group exhibitions nationally.
Her practice mediates purely formalist concerns and contemporary conceptualism.