Quietly Dispelling the Dark

VISUAL is pleased to present Quietly Dispelling the Dark, a selection of work drawn from the Arts Council Collection. The works in this exhibition have been selected by writer Colm Tóibín, in his role as Laureate for Irish Fiction. A text by Tóibín accompanies this exhibition and is available here and in the gallery, along with a map which allows the viewer to identify particular works.

The contents of this exhibition are drawn from a wide timespan in the history of the Arts Council Collection, and are united by what Tóibín identifies as ‘dark abstraction’. As he writes in the accompanying text:

This exhibition explores a hidden tradition in Irish art: a kind of dark abstraction. It includes work that uses sombre colours, muted textures and hidden perspectives. It contains paintings, sculptures, photographs and installations that guard their mysteries. The art here is formal and austere but also tentative and suggestive, not figurative in any obvious way, nor based on the tones and contours of landscape.

Ranging in time from 1963 to 2021, these works reflect a wide variety of media. They also reflect changing currents in contemporary art; in collecting; and in artists’ practice. The earliest, a piece by Gerda Frömel, highlights these differences but also unexpected affinities with one of the latest works in the exhibition, unit f by Áine Mac Giolla Bhríde. Made almost 50 years apart, both depict simple shapes, employ muted palettes and defy easy interpretation.

The exhibition takes its title from a work by Mary McIntyre, which, though being readable as an abstract image, is in fact, figurative. Tóibín, in his text, identifies it as a work which “could easily be a beginning, a door opening into the Collection, or it could be a culmination.”

Except in very few cases, the whole of a collection is never viewable at the same time. Rather, it relies on selection, contextualisation, framing. By pairing a disparate yet harmonious group of works, Tóibín has highlighted connections and sympathies between individual pieces. This enables us to see them not just as striking works in their own right, but as points in a narrative made by him, or by anyone who cares to look.

Colm Tóibín is the author of eleven novels, including The Master, Brooklyn, The Magician and Long Island, and two collections of short stories and many works of non-fiction. He has been three times shortlisted for the Booker Prize. In 2021 he was awarded the David Cohen Prize for Literature. Tóibín was appointed the Laureate for Irish Fiction 2022–2024. The Laureate for Irish Fiction is an initiative of the Arts Council of Ireland. Tóibín will deliver the Laureate for Irish Fiction Annual Lecture 2024 in VISUAL on Sunday 3 November.

The Arts Council Collection was established in 1962 and comprises almost 1,400 works of modern and contemporary Irish art. Approximately 50% of the Collection is on display across Ireland at any one time – works can be seen as part of temporary exhibitions in museums and galleries, as well as in public buildings such as hospitals, universities and schools as part of an ongoing public loan programme.

Artists included in the exhibition are:

Michael Coleman
Maud Cotter
Mary Farl Powers
Fergus Feehily
Marie Foley
Gerda Fromel
Sarah Iremonger
Brenda Kelliher
Cecil King
Áine Mac Giolla Bhríde
TJ Maher
Mary McIntyre
Dennis McNulty
Julie Merriman
Anthony O'Carroll
Paul O'Keeffe
Michael Warren