Shoot The Tiger | March 2012 | Dublin 1

PrettyvacanT Dublin presents ‘Shoot the Tiger’, showcasing artwork created since 2008 under the new constraints of an economically damaged nation.

The work represents an emotional and artistic response to a post-Crash Ireland and features artists working to make their voice heard in an ever-uncertain economic reality.  The art represents concepts of decline, collapse and failure, but also of optimism and hope.

The exhibition will take place in one of the many newly-constructed yet vacant retail units filling our streets and towns, creating a new urban landscape. PrettyvacanT Dublin was invited by Dublin City Council Arts Office to enliven one of its empty units through a pilot scheme designating the space for cultural use.

‘Shoot the Tiger’ artists are: Aoife Flynn | Amy McGovern | Eilis Murphy | NO!DEA (aka Declan Greaney) | Noel Noblett | La Cosa Preziosa | Blaithin Quinn

‘The Irony of Fate’ is a series of collages by Flynn comparing Ireland’s newly-abandoned buildings to Soviet buildings and monuments. Flynn draws connections between the near-utopian ideology and their resultant architecture.

Mc Govern’s delicate watercolours are in stark contrast to the subject matter which they depict, and the medium on which they appear; images of derelict buildings and abandoned structures are deftly painted on top of ageing and yellowed delivery notes.

Murphy recently produced ‘Roll Call’, an artist book containing an alphabetical list of Ghost Estates in Ireland. It contains data from a variety of sources including the Department of the Environment and a Housing Survey by Local Government from 2010.

‘Without Portfolio’ by NO!DEA is a series of painting dealing with individuals without a voice -  marginalised in society and falling through cracks in an all-inclusive democratic state - and speaks of people with a past that desperately want a future, but are resigned to weathering a bleak and uncertain present.

Noblett’s photographic work consistently examines a country in the grip of a recession. In the series ‘Industrial Island’ he observes this decline in even more detail and through the context of an industrial landscape.

La Cosa Preziosa’s sound work ‘….and now I speak’ is an interpretation of Pearse’s poem ‘The Rebel’, replayed and reframed as a modern call to conscience. The recording features a reading by late Dublin icon, Ronnie Drew, against a backdrop of sounds of an indifferent Dublin afternoon.

Quinn’s ‘Paperwork’ explores how we can reorder and restructure vacant space. The work comprises 141 identical paper modules, folded into one of an infinite number of spatial configurations.

The Opening of ‘Shoot the Tiger’ is taking place on Thursday 15th March from 6pm at Unit 3, James Joyce Street, Dublin 1.

The show continues at Unit 3 until 31st March and is open Tuesday - Saturday, 12 – 5pm (Closed St Patrick’s Day)