Sanctuary, a solo show by Nickie Hayden, 8 November - 13 December 2020, Olivier Cornet Gallery
8 November - 13 December 2020
Solo show
Artist: Nickie Hayden
Nickie Hayden's solo show features a series of new paintings, an installation and a haiku wheel. See the artist's statement below for more details. Scroll down to see images of the work.
The exhibition also includes a series of limited-edition screen-prints featuring poems by Catherine Ann Cullen, Theo Dorgan, Rachael Hegarty, Paula Meehan
and Peter Money. The paper is Somerset, satin soft white, 300 mgs, acid free. Editioned by the artist Robert Russell in a limited edition of 20 each, numbered and signed by their authors. Priced at 50 Euro each (unframed), this is a great opportunity to acquire a poem by some of Ireland's foremost poets. Please note that the proceeds from the sale of Peter Money's poem (on which the exhibition is based) will go to immigrants poets in need of support.
Online Launch of the exhibition: Sunday 8 November in our 3D Virtual Space. A special live streamed event took place the following week, i.e on Sunday 15 November, 6:30pm (Irish Time): The artist talked about her work in this exhibition and Catherine Ann Cullen, Theo Dorgan, Rachael Hegarty, Paula Meehan, Peter Money and Toyomi Iwawaki-Riebel read their poems. Ray Hegarty and the SAOL sisters
also participated. You can watch this recorded event on Facebook via our Films Page or directly on our YouTube video channel.
Availability of the show: Tuesdays to Sundays at the gallery from 1st December 2020. Please make sure you are aware of our December opening times and of our preference for visits by pre-booking by reading this information. The show is also available in our 3D Virtual Space.
The Olivier Cornet Gallery is delighted to present this solo exhibition by Nickie Hayden, a member of our AGA
group.
Sanctuary
"My work brings together various elements within an exhibition space, creating a linked series of works using different media that invites the audience to interact and respond on an emotional level. I often invite other artists to respond and contribute elements to the exhibition that will further develop the narrative.
This exhibition and installation is a response to a poem written by the American poet Peter Money, who was taught by Allen Ginsberg. I was introduced to Money while working towards a previous exhibition that was run in the James Joyce Centre. In Peter Money’s work, I found an echo of something that I was very familiar with. The poem I am responding to is called ‘To The Lady in Pink Standing On Top The Bridge’. This poem describes a girl wearing a pink dress on Brooklyn Bridge. It looks as though she may jump from the bridge, and there is a person in a taxi watching this unfold. It is up to the reader to decide whether the girl decides to jump or not, and this forms the basis of the idea for my exhibition. In my interpretation she does not jump, and so the pink dress represents her sanctuary. It is this sanctuary, nourishment and inner strength that I have represented in this new body of work.
There are several elements to this project. I have made a pink tent to echo the girl’s pink dress. The tent shape is geometric and strong, representing a safer and sturdier place for inner strength to evolve. The tent walls are made from Perspex filled with pink sea salt crystals, allowing the light to filter through. Crystals are known to represent grounding and strength and have a magical feel about them. I have attached collected poems within the tent on translucent paper that are in turn effected by the light. My aim is for this to feel incredibly peaceful to the audience.
Poets Theo Dorgan, Rachael Hegarty, Catherine Ann Cullen
and Paula Meehan have contributed poems for this that connect with the idea of sanctuary, and I have worked with the Saol Project, a woman’s group in Dublin’s inner city, and they have written and contributed sentences to the project.
Another part of the project is a Haiku wheel, an element that I have previously used in other projects. I have enlisted the help of Haiku expert Toyomi Iwawaki-Riebel, a lecturer of Japanese Studies at the University of Erlangen-Nurnberg. She has collected Haiku from poets and philosophers from all over the world. These collected Haiku have also been inspired by Money’s poem and they introduce a different perspective to the project."
Nickie Hayden
April 2020
Coverage in the press and social media:
What lies beneath: Stand Alone by Nickie Hayden, Niall MacMonagle, The Independent, 15 November 2020
'Sanctuary and Poetry': Click on this link to watch a live streamed event hosted on 15 November on YouTube (and Facebook) by the Olivier Cornet Gallery and featuring Nickie Hayden, Ray Hegarty and the SAOL Sisters, Peter Money, Toyomi Iwawaki Riebel, Catherine Ann Cullen, Rachael Hegarty, Theo Dorgan and Paula Meehan, with special thanks to Robert Russell.
