Like Me

Alice Hanratty, Kian Benson Bailes, Eleanor McCaughey

10 February — 31 March 2018

About the Artist(s)

Alice Hanratty was born in Dublin and studied painting and printmaking at the National College of Art in Dublin and at the Hornsey College of Art, London. In the late 60's she worked in Africa and this was a formative influence on her work. Her subjects reference a variety of subjects from medieval and renaissance paintings and indigenous African wood-carvings. For this exhibition she created a series of new painting works and made a large-scale installation in the mezzanine of The Dock. She is a member of Aosdána, and has exhibited widely both in Ireland and internationally.

Kian Benson Bailes lives and works in Sligo. He alludes to discourses surrounding identity, its construction and deconstruction. He makes material and spatial interventions that reference the various narratives attached to ideas of authenticity, identity and the body. He is interested in the commodification of queer spaces and cultures, the presentation of these spaces through technologies, and how these juxtapose with mainstream heteronormativity and concepts surrounding notions of identity and its construction. He has recently exhibited in Tulca, Galway and CCA Derry.

Eleanor McCaughey lives and works in Dublin. Her work is an exploration of contemporary representations of portraiture, referencing the tradition of still life. The work juxtaposes past ideas of identity and power with new ideas, taking reference from elaborately embellished Asmat ancestor skulls, Christian iconography to the modern day selfie. Recent work has referenced from Adam Curtis’s 2002 documentary series ‘Century of the self’ which advances the thesis that Freud’s views of the unconscious set the stage for corporations and later politicians, to market to our unconscious fears and desires. Her work responds to ideas of self expression, the way we examine and present ourselves, attitudes to fashions and the distorting lens of social media. Eleanor has exhibited both nationally and internationally including the National Portrait Gallery London, the Royal Ulster Academy Belfast, and the RHA Dublin.

The 2018 Like Me exhibition was the third in a series of exhibitions programmed for our galleries that brought together artists at varying stages of their artistic careers. The exhibition made reference to art-historical motifs such as classical portraiture and painting, and elements such as the frieze, iconography, as well as newer processes of collage, assemblage and the digital deconstruction of the image. The works shown all referenced the body and the human experience, through both an historical and a contemporary lens.

Like Me

Alice Hanratty, Kian Benson Bailes, Eleanor McCaughey

Like Me

Essay, Review

Like Me

Exhibition Insight