craft in contemporary art about the panel members

Elements of Craft in Contemporary Art Practices - Talk - 8 November 2024

An event presented as part Dublin Gallery Weekend 2024

Panel: Jean Ryan, Annika Berglund, Hugh Cummins and Yanny Petters 

6:30 pm on Friday 8 November 2024,
Olivier Cornet Gallery, 3 Great Denmark Street, Dublin 1.

Attendees will be able to see Yanny Petters's show 'Fieldwork with Mainie and Albrecht' and have a look at our storage area in the gallery.
The Olivier Cornet Gallery is delighted to host this talk between art historian Jean Ryan and our artists Annika Berglund, Hugh Cummins and Yanny Petters. This event is organised in the context of Yanny Petters's current show 'Fieldwork with Mainie and Albrecht'. It is also part of Dublin Gallery Weekend 2024 presented by the Contemporary Art Gallery Association (CAGA), Ireland. 

Jean Ryan will present on ‘materiality, function and crafts relationship with the body’ and the panel will talk about materiality in their practice.

About the panel members:

Jean Ryan is an art historian who is interested in exploring the topic of creativity in the visual arts. She aims to show how artworks are the end product of multiple decisions artists make when creating their work. These decisions range from the subject matter they want to bring to the viewer’s attention to the direction of research and focus on that subject. What aspect of it do they want to bring to the viewer’s attention and why? Artists have to decide how to communicate their ideas to the viewer. What visual form will they take? Which materials are best suited to their needs? How will they use them effectively? The decisions are endless and while some are planned others are more spontaneous as the artist responds to unexpected events while making the work. Creativity needs imagination, understanding, curiosity, skill, and risk-taking. The ability to think laterally allows an artist to present the viewer with new images based on associations between diverse ideas and points of reference. Jean is curious to explore and map the creative process. She wants to pinpoint the decisions made along the way so the viewer can understand the artists thinking and making as they give form to their ideas. Jean has collaborated with the Olivier Cornet Gallery since 2014.

Yanny Petters has been painting exquisitely detailed portraits of wild plants since the 1990s. Fascinated by colour, form and detail, her love and interest in botanical art stemmed from her work as a signwriter where plant themes were common in decorative design. As well as working in watercolours and oils Yanny also specialises in verre églomisé or ‘reverse painting on glass’, a technique she has been developing since her signwriting years. Yanny teaches watercolour painting and drawing from nature and the purpose of her work is to raise awareness of the wonders of nature and especially the wild plants of Ireland. Her paintings are in a number of important collections including the Shirley Sherwood Collection at Kew Gardens, London, the Office of Public Works State Collection, & the National Botanic Gardens, Dublin. One of her works, The Plants We Played With, was acquired by the National Gallery of Ireland in 2020 and is currently part of their group show In Real Life. Her piece, ‘Hand Fan for Habitats’ was acquired by the National Museum of Ireland in 2021. Yanny has been represented by the Olivier Cornet Gallery since 2004. Her current solo show ‘Fieldwork with Mainie and Albrecht’ can be seen here at the gallery until the 10th of November 2024. 

Swedish born artist Annika Berglund graduated from NCAD in 2010. Her career includes four solo exhibitions and over 40 group exhibitions nationally and abroad. She spent a year as resident artist in NCAD (National College of Art and design, Dublin),which culminated in the solo exhibition Materiality in the Olivier Cornet Gallery in 2014. Annika has won several awards including the Ireland Crafts Council’s price for Best Craft in the Garden 2008 and the National University of Ireland Art and Design Prize 2010. Annika has created sculptural art work for over 20 years. Initially working in ceramics, she added glass and bronze to her means of expression around 2010. Just before Covid struck, she was looking for less energy hungry means of expression and found that felted wool suited her way of working and visual language. She spent 2020 and 2021 skilling up in felt and fibre arts. One of her earliest felt pieces depicted the corona virus and was acquired by the National Museum of Ireland. Her latest solo show in 2021 was called Interlocked, featuring Felt work and Joomchi (an ancient Korean art form featuring “felted” paper). Lately Annika has been very active in the guild of Feltmakers Ireland and has contributed as editor and contributor to the book Exploring Irish Wool For Feltmaking. Annika’s work is in many private collections and that of the Craft Council of Ireland, and the National University of Ireland (NUI), amongst other institutions. 'Tapestry’, her third solo show with the Olivier Cornet Gallery opens on 17 November 2024.

Hugh Cummins' s works have clean, flowing lines involving his own innovative construction processes that consistently challenge the range of possibilities of his materials. Using hardwoods and fine wood veneers, Hugh Cummins creates a wide range of objects including finely finished boxes, stylish uplighters, delicate platters and sculptural vessels and forms. Hugh Cummins was born in Dun Laoghaire and after a number of years working and studying in London lives again in Dun Laoghaire. He progressed with his acquired traditional fine cabinet making skills to creating purely decorative objects. His designs have clean, flowing lines involving his own innovative construction processes that consistently challenge the range of possibilities of his materials. Woods that Hugh works with, such as Beech and Walnut, allow him to push the boundaries within which traditional wood working techniques were previously contained. Hugh selects very carefully thin slices of wood, knife cut from a prepared log, and uses a sequence of these leaves in layers. Different species of wood conform in similar but very specific contours and Hugh’s creative process comes close to the limits of influence. The layering allows the artist to shape the wood using the inherent tensions in the grain and size of the cut sheets. The sequenced leaves can be compressed with formers made by Hugh and/or carefully shaped by hand while a glue vein sets creating one-off unique forms. Hugh has participated in many thematic group shows with the Olivier Cornet Gallery since 2014. His work has featured in many other exhibitions such as the RHA Annual, the Royal Ulster Academy Open Submission, the Lavit Gallery in Cork, Sculpture in Context (Botanic Gardens Dublin) and more recently the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland where his work for the Climate and Health Art Competition received a 'highly commended' award. Hugh’s work is in many private collections as well as public collections such as the OPW State Art Collection and the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland. His work has also featured in the prestigious publication ‘Masters of Contemporary Wood Art” (Wood Symphony Gallery, U.S.A).

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