Chanelle Walshe and Betsy Stirratt : Nerve and Sinew

15 June to 9 July
The Custom House Gallery and Studios
The Quay, Westport, Co. Mayo,

This exhibition presents a series of paintings by Betsy Stirratt (Indiana USA) and Chanelle Walshe (Dublin, IRE). The paintings focus on mystery, magnificence and intricacies within the human body. Stirratt presents a number of works from her series La Maladie and Walshe presents works from her recent series Beatland. Both artists spent extensive periods of time in medical museums and libraries in order to make the works.

Stirratt presents delicate and beautifully rendered sections, such as a hand or a torso on flat backgrounds, often gold-leaf or wax. The works address our underlying revulsion towards disease and decay and the inevitable progression toward old age and death that is the fate of each one of us.

Walshe also works from sections of the body, focusing in particular on internal organs such as the heart and the lungs. Her paintings depict the organs in various energetic states. Similarly to Stirratt’s works, the forms are isolated and offered up to the viewer like a gift or a sacrifice.

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