Don’t be scared, just take a quantum leap

CONNECTIONS and quantum physics collide in North Clare this month as two very different exhibitions run concurrently in an Ennistymon gallery.

Liens, an exhibition of new work by Finola Graham and Pauline Turmel opened on Friday in the Courthouse Gallery. Barry Foley’s Don’t be frightened, it’s just Quantum Logic also opened this week and features pieces in computer generated imagery, watercolour and ink.
Running until June 7 Liens (ties, bonds, connections) is an evolution of the work done by the French artist, Pauline Turmel, and the Irish artist, Finola Graham, for their exhibition Cross-Currents in the Centre Culturel Irlandais Paris in 2011.
The Paris exhibition was the result of a process of exchange of ideas and of place that took place over a period of three years, between the two artists of different worlds, nationalities and generations.   
Every three months from 2007 to 2010, Turmel came to County Clare to work in Graham’s studio and the surrounding area, while Graham went to Paris and worked in Turmel’s studio there.
While working for the pair’s last exhibition in the CCI in 2011, Finola returned to an area of Paris where, as a student in the 1960s, she had lived. She describes that time as “one of the most intense and formative periods of my life. This brought up a map of submerged memory and layers upon layers of feelings. This sense of a mapped history dictated what was, for me, a new approach to my work.
“I started to use fine ink lines and nikawa glue paint for a very sparse intense use of colour. Since the Paris exhibition, I have continued to work this way using different textures of paper with prints, paint and inks. The works in this exhibition combine some of the Paris works with my recent works.”
In Don’t be frightened, it’s just Quantum Logic Tipperary man Barry Foley explores intriguing questions about science and scientific exploration.
“Not since Victorian times has science and scientific exploration captured the public’s attention, nor has it been more controversial. The world is at a juncture; global warming, economic and cultural disaffection. Has scientific evolution contributed to the situation we now find ourselves in? Can science bridge these gaps and aid in the solution to such problems?” the artist asks.
An inspiration for his work is Charles Quartermaine a scientist, explorer and artist. He received his Doctorate in Quantum Anthropology from Harvard in 2008 and is best known for the discovery of the Higgs Boson Field, which not only confirmed the multi-verse space, time theory but opened the door (literally) to inter-dimensional travel.
“His work deals with current research in cosmology and quantum physics and is trying to reveal the very essence of our world. To challenge what we think we know to be true. Influenced by Victorian plate photography and the era itself, Charles displays his work believing that we all possess this sense of shared history,” Barry outlines.
Don’t be frightened, it’s just Quantum Logic runs in the Red Couch Space at the Courthouse Gallery until June 7.