Jackie McKenna New Work from the Studio

Friday 18th January - Saturday 16th February
10am - 6pm Daily
FREE ADMISSION

JACKIE MCKENNA NEW WORK FROM THE STUDIO Jackie McKenna, a native of north Leitrim, is known throughout Ireland for her many public sculpture commissions. In 2005, she was an artist in residence at the Leitrim Sculpture Centre in Manorhamilton, and for the first time in her career, she began a studio-based practice. McKenna had time to pursue other concerns that had long been sidelined during the years she had focused on commissioned sculptures . This exhibition is the result of the experimentations with new materials and working methods that began during the residency and continue to the present. McKenna's new work grapples with a host of political concerns within a personal vocabulary using materials that are new to her practice. Memories from the past, both recollections of childhood and politicizing experiences such as time the artist spent working in Palestinian camps in Beirut (1982-1983) are brought into form in materials such as clay, plaster and turf mould. Jackie McKenna was born in North Leitrim where she continues to live and work. She is a co-founder of the Leitrim Sculpture Centre in Manorhamilton. Her public sculpture commissions, many in bronze, stone or wood, are found throughout Ireland including: the William Butler Yeats Interpretive Centre, Drumcliffe County Sligo; The Madonna and Child, St. Mary's Church, Carrick-on-Shannon; the City Cow, City Park, Wolfe Tone Street, Dublin. She is currently working on commissions forU.N.I.F.I.L. in Sligo and for Iarnrod Eireann in Dublin.