Grace McMurray

Irish Modernisms : Legacies of Modernism in the North

From architecture and infrastructure to everyday domestic design, the works in the exhibition include print, sculpture, textile, and architecture, highlighting the complex and nuanced influence of modernism in the North of Ireland. The exhibition is co-curated by Catherine Hemelryk and Matt Retallick.

James Ashe’s work often responds to architecture and the built environment, and for this exhibition he presents a series of newly commissioned print editions of Modernist buildings across NI from Craigavon, Banbridge, Sion Mills and Derry~Londonderry. Rachael Campbell-Palmer’s work addresses seriality and architecture with two bodies of work using concrete features in the exhibition. Seriality is also a feature of Grace McMurray’s hand-woven ribbon works, using geometry and patterns of Modernist art and design that also questions gendered labour and its value.

Ben Weir has created a site-specific sculptural installation to transform CCA’s gallery into an abstracted domestic environment. Using modular concrete blocks the hearth and countertop host domestic objects selected by Phillip McCrilly. Phillip’s research is present through the ornaments, trinkets, demijohns of Gorse Wine, foraged wildflowers and a remaking of a rejected illuminated sign amongst other items.

To coincide with the new exhibition Irish Modernisms: legacies of modernism in the North, the CCA Derry-Londonderry invites you to a series of mid-week talks and discussions which examine the legacy of modernism. Starting with the island of Ireland, the geographical reach will expand over the weeks to explore global contexts.