Experience, Strength & Hope

Time: 10.00am to 6.00pm Monday to Saturday

Over the last two years the artists Brian Maguire and Michael McLoughlin have facilitated weekly workshops with residents of Ashleigh House, a residential centre for women in recovery from drugs, operated by Coolmine Therapeutic Community, in Damastown, Dublin 15. The resulting body of work consists of collaborations between both artists and a core group of ten women who worked together to create a body of work in response to each other. This exhibition aims to explore this body of work through both audio and visual mediums. It will feature Maguire’s portraits of the women, alongside McLoughlin’s audio work capturing elements and fragments of the women’s lives in conversation. Work by the participants themselves will be exhibited alongside the artists work.

Brian Maguire is renowned as a fiercely expressive painter whose principal topics have always been sexual and political alienation. Maguire represented Ireland at the 1998 Sao Paulo Biennial resulting in what has perhaps become his best-known work, 'Casa de Cultura', a provocative and humane interaction with the inhabitants of the city's favela and prisons. Maguire exhibits widely throughout Europe, Japan and the Americas. A major exhibition of his work took place at the Hugh Lane Municipal Gallery, Dublin and traveled to the Contemporary Art Museum, Houston, TX in 2000 and the Crawford Art Gallery, Cork in 2001. Among the many collections, both public and private, in which he is represented are those of the Irish Museum of Modern Art, the Alvar Aalto Museum, Finland, the Gemeentemuseum, The Hague, Netherlands and the Collection of Ed & Nancy Kienholz. In 2000 Maguire was appointed Professor of Fine Art and Head of the Faculty of Fine Art at the National College of Art and Design in Dublin

Michael McLoughlin is a practicing artist based in Dublin. He has exhibited widely in Ireland and internationally. He has previously exhibited at The Lab, Dublin, Limerick City Gallery of Art, Limerick, Triskel Art Centre, Cork and as part of audio art radio events such as AART, IMMA (1995), SonicEye, Helsinki (2000) and Resonant Cities, Glasgow (2004). McLoughlin's recent work combines audio, drawing, photography and sculptural objects, and has explored social relationships with the built environment. The work often involves collaboration/co-operation with residents of a particular locale.

Ashleigh House is a residential rehabilitation service for women dealing with their recovery from drugs or alcohol. It is unique in Ireland as it offers a residential setting for both women and their children for a maximum of 6 months in duration. Based on the therapeutic community model, it is modified to offer women and their children a safe environment to address substance misuse issues. The goal is to encourage psychological and lifestyle changes to enable people to maintain a drug-free existence. The treatment approach is based on peer support, and participants are expected to contribute to the general running of the community, and to their own recovery, by actively participating in educational activities and in group and individual therapy.

For More Information: http://www.draiocht.ie