Deliberate/Deliberate brings together the practices of Alastair Keady and Helen O’Sullivan, foregrounding repetition as both method and sensibility. Through constraint, deliberation, and attentiveness to process, the exhibition considers how meaning can emerge slowly; through structure and deviation, articulation and restraint.
Alastair Keady’s practice begins from a deliberate visual language of modular forms—circles, squares, and points in-between— and a process shaped by a background in graphic design and an affinity for the utopian underpinnings of late-period modernism. Composition, tone, and colour, function as communicative tools, forming narratives that operate somewhere between the overt and the subliminal. Working from a constrained set of elements, Keady avoids over-refinement by incorporating accident, variation, and openness to shifts in intent as integral parts of the process: value reveals itself through making. In recent works, text operates as a point of departure and structuring device, with layered linguistic and sign symbol systems engaging ideas of easter eggs, puzzles, and messages hidden in plain sight.
Helen O’Sullivan’s practice unfolds as a quiet investigation into time, presence, and perception. Built through disciplined sequences of mark-making, her work is shaped by repetition, rhythm, and restraint. underpinned by Minimalism, each gesture, whether printed or drawn, functions as an intentional pause, drawing attention to the subtle interplay between line, surface, and absence. Through a reduced visual vocabulary and careful modulation of tone and material, the work invites stillness and reflection, encouraging slow and attentive engagement. Working primarily with mokuhanga and acrylic ink on washi, O’Sullivan foregrounds duration and material behaviour in equal measure. Her measured rhythms do not depict an image so much as create a condition; one in which clarity, quietude, and focused looking operate as a process of refinement and heightened awareness. Repetition and silence together open a contemplative field for the viewer.
Together, the two practices propose deliberation not as rigidity, but as attentiveness: a shared commitment to process, clarity, and the slow unfolding of meaning. Deliberate/Deliberate invites viewers into a space where perception is sharpened, narratives are quietly negotiated, and what is withheld becomes as significant as what is revealed.
Location: Cope Street, Temple Bar, Dublin 2, D02 X021
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