Susan Connolly
GROUND (100+one)
21 September – 2 November 2024

The F.E. McWilliam Gallery and Armagh City, Banbridge and Craigavon Borough Council are delighted to present Susan Connolly’s exhibition GROUND (100+one). A new body of work that responds to the specific context of the Gallery, GROUND (100+one) is shaped by Connolly’s ongoing preoccupation with the materiality of painting and informed by her research into Mainie Jellett’s Decoration (1923), the first modern abstract painting exhibited in Ireland.

Connolly creates art works that slide between categories and genres. She pushes painting to its limits through processes that include layering, scoring, cutting and peeling paint from its support. The title GROUND refers to this common denominator shared by every painting – a surface, on which to apply the pigment. (100+one) references the number of years since Jellett’s Decoration was first exhibited in Ireland and also the one hundred paintings and collages that Connolly set herself the task of producing for this exhibition.

Jellett’s approach to painting was shaped by the time that she and Evie Hone, spent in Paris studying and collaborating with the Cubist Albert Gleizes. Together, they established a set of theoretical principles to create an organic, “living,” non-materialistic art. Jellett’s Decoration was based on these principles. However, when it was exhibited in Dublin in 1923, Decoration provoked hostility and confusion amongst Irish audiences. For a young woman recently returned to Dublin from Paris, Jellett’s decision not to turn heel was an act of courage and evidence of her determination to help shape modern Irish art.

Connolly’s interest in Jellett is both as a pioneer and an abstract painter who challenged preconceptions of painting. Her focus on Decoration also relates to the title which has negative associations in the art world, suggesting something superficial or frivolous. Through her homage to Jellett, Connolly aims to reclaim the term and propose a form of abstract art that is more akin to the repetitive processes of sewing, weaving and other craft-based art forms that are usually associated with women’s work.

Jellett’s commitment to the theoretical principles of abstract cubism is similar to Connolly’s methodical technical approaches to her work. While Jellett was seeking to create a modernist abstract Irish art, Connolly’s aims are focused on expanding our perceptions of what painting is and challenging viewers to look and think beyond the painted surface.

Hilary Heron: A Retrospective
16 November 2024 to 15 February 2025

The F.E. McWilliam Gallery and Armagh City, Banbridge and Craigavon Borough Council are delighted to present Hilary Heron: A Retrospective. Hilary Heron (1923–1977), was born in Dublin to x and Mary Heron (nee Collen) who were both from Portadown. She studied sculpture at the National College of Art, where she won the prestigious Taylor Art Scholarship Prize three years running in 1944, 1945 and 1946. With it she bought a motorbike and travelled throughout Europe and to Paris, where Samuel Beckett introduced her to key post-war artists and writers that influenced her thinking and production. She was represented by Ireland’s most important commercial gallery, the Waddington Galleries, and her international visibility was reinforced when she was selected to represent Ireland at the Venice Biennale in 1956 alongside Louis le Brocquy.

The exhibition is arranged in seven themes each articulating a different aspect of Heron’s work. It begins with Early work and then follows the thematics of: Venice Biennale, Flight, Primitivism, the Male body, and the Female body. The displays are comprised of works which articulate the full breadth of Heron’s sculptural practice: of wood carving, stone carving, welding in different metals, lead reliefs, beaten metal reliefs, encased stone assemblages; as well as her graphic practices of drawing and etching. The exhibition highlights how Heron navigated a career in a field dominated by men. Contemporary writers were united in their acclaim of her work, Anna Sheehy hailed Heron as ‘Ireland’s Most Promising Sculptor’. Despite her success during her life, her work was largely forgotten after her death due to historical biases and the art market’s lower value on women’s work. A collaboration with the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, this exhibition aims to introduce Heron’s work to contemporary audiences and ensure that she takes her place in the canon of Irish art history.