John Schabel
Passenger # 6
1995-2001
Toned gelatin silver print
23 x 19 in.
Courtesy the artist &
Paul Morris Gallery, New York

Curated by the artist, Mark Joyce, this exhibition will feature the work of four artists, David Deutsch, Olav Christopher Jenssen, Mariele Neudecker and John Schabel. While Neudecker successfully exhibited in the Galway Arts Centre last year, the remaining three artists will be exhibiting at the Green On Red Gallery and in Ireland for the first time. Joyce¹s curatorial debut, The Idea of North, examines notions of what north is. This exhibition explores the idea of "North" as a direction, as a place and as a cultural condition. As Joyce has observed, "The imagery can shift with the times. In J.G. Frazier¹s book The Golden Bough (1922), the spirits of the nordic forest are beautifully benign. In the 1930s, much darker cultural forces annexed an entire zeitgist of romantic European culture."

The artists in this exhibition were selected for the diversity of their media and imagery as much as for their cultural location: two of the artists are North-American and two are European. American artist, David Deutsch, will exhibit both paintings and photographs In one body of work to be exhibited, Deutsch has used a high-powered lamp called a Night Sun, to photograph the isolated and strange streetscapes of the city. Mariele Neudecker, a German artist living in London, works with both video and sculpture. Her tank pieces of which one will be on view, are miniature landscapes within glass tanks. Like snow domes and momento mori, these sculptures evoke a powerful sense of both isolation and reminiscence. John Schabel is an American photographer whose Passenger series, depict anonymous individuals seated at the window of an aeroplane and photographed from the tarmac or side of the runway. Each image is cropped so that the passenger looks as if he or she is hermetically sealed in transition and isolation. Post-September 11th, these images are both eerie and compulsive. Norwegian painter Olav Christopher Jenssen paints the epidermal world, the flexible web of skin between things. Jenssen¹s large-scale oil paintings combine abstract markings with letters and numbers to construct a balance between spontaneity and discipline, recognisable imagery and personal language.

In conjunction with the exhibition, the Gallery will host a Gallery Talk with Mariele Neudecker and Mark Joyce on Wednesday, 8th January 2003 at 1:15 P.M. All are welcome.

This exhibition has been generously supported by the Goethe Institut Inter Nationes Dublin.