At Open Walls, it's art for all
For one night each month, Open Walls offers artists a chance to showcase and sell their work in a setting as democratic as it is laid-back.
Art, like artists, wants to be seen.
On a cold and windy Monday evening in the destructive aftermath of a storm that most people can’t pronounce, especially me, I took the stairs up to the first floor for the third edition of Open Walls in The Roundy on Castle Street.
It’s a grab bag of artists, and the vibe is far downstream from a museum or even a gallery opening. Sure, there were artists present, their art adorning the round walls, but there was also someone selling raffle tickets on entry and a table of people in the middle of the room playing Kings in a Corner, a card game.
One of the hardest things about art appreciation in a public setting might be those first few steps when you step into a space, crossing that threshold to where art lives, and where you, the viewer, have to dutifully act your part as appraiser, customer, connoisseur, or blagger. What if you’re presented with a banana skin stuck to a wall? Or a urinal?
Thankfully, there was nothing as derivative and clichéd as that on display.
At Open Walls, you’re still crossing into a space where art lives, if only temporarily, and perhaps, if it’s good enough, it will make some sort of an impact, however fleeting or long-lasting.
But the atmosphere is so come-all-ye, and the way the show is curated so relaxed, that you’re not quite sure if you’re walking into something that’s in the beginning, the middle, or the end of being hung. Or abandoned.
Ailbhe Reilly-Tuite, a recent Crawford College of Art graduate based at Backwater Artists Group, had just one painting on show. Ailbhe is, however, the driving force behind Open Walls. As Ailbhe said, Open Walls was a way to get her artworks out in the open, dust off a few cobwebs and also, perhaps more importantly, provide a venue for artists and the art-adjacent community to come and hang out for a few hours once a month. And give the stage over to musicians. And play cards if they wanted to.
Open Walls, as the name implies, works through a call-out on social media: artists can submit their applications on Google Docs. When it’s full, it’s full. The next step is to come along on the day and get the pieces on display for the show.
What’s to see? Well, therein lies the beauty.
By far and away, photographer Thady Trá had the biggest collection on show. His black-and-white photos, captured with an analogue camera and printed in his own darkroom in Clonakilty, are a summary of where his camera has travelled: Berlin, London, Cork, and closer to home in Clonakilty.
There’s a stillness and quietness to much of his work, given greater emphasis when distilled to just two colours. As a memento to all who stopped by, Thady Trá had cut up test strips which he had piled into a bowl, free to take to a new home.
Next to him were a series of paintings by French-Irish artist Ríona Denys. Over a game of cards that I found myself in, Ríona explained that she also does live painting, positioning herself next to a DJ, as she did for Culture Night. While the music washes over the crowd, she gets to it, painting away.
Does it ever get messy? I asked, wondering if some in the crowd might fancy a go on the easel.
No, she told me. They’re very respectful.
Between two windows looking out over the shadows and streetlights on the Coal Quay, Dave Crowley, a graphic designer by day, had two small pastoral paintings on display. Like everything else in Open Walls, the scenes from Sherkin Island, one a portrait of a donkey, the other a small enclosed group, were for sale.
Elsewhere, there were portraits of nudes, poetry, portraits of animals in black and white, and work from Amy Connelly, Maria Murray, Hannah McCarthy, Eileen Jeffries, and Siobhán Gillies.
Open Walls is run on a shoestring budget: the two venues, the Kino and The Roundy, offer their space for free; there’s no commission taken on the works sold, so artists get the full whack of the sticker price.
Open Walls returns next month in the Kino. All welcome, card players too