Post Celtic Tiger images part of exhibition set to open

A solo show by Edenderry based artist Catherine Brereton depicting images of the post Celtic Tiger landscape of ghost estates and half built hotels will open at Aras an Chontae in Tullamore on Friday, February 28.

Featuring real midland locations, Catherine’s show entitled “The Promise” is sure to evoke strong feelings with people - what once represented a promise of a brighter future and a change for the better, now lonely, empty resting places for those ideals that serve as a hollow daily reminder of defeated dreams.

“I am very aware of what I feel when I see these places, and I am trying to make what I see, equivalent to what I feel,” Catherine said ahead of the show’s opening.

Despite the bleakness of the subject matter, what also comes through Catherine’s work is a sense of surrealism, a mystical quality that has both presence and absense.

Catherine grew up and studied art in London, achieving her MA in the Camberwell School of Art in 1992. In 2000, she resigned as head of art and design in Southwark College London and moved back to her family roots outside Edenderry with her husband and two young daughters. Her work still retains a metropolitan quality however.

As a painter and printmaker Catherine says she has always been interested in the built environment. “In London, I was painting the Tate Modern building before it became the Tate, because I was purely interested in its post industrial form,” she explained.

These days Catherine is an art teacher in St Mary’s Secondary School in Edenderry and she also runs the busy Rushbrook Studios, which provides art classes and summer camps for all ages as well as a portfolio preparation service for students looking to study art at third level.

In addition she is also a board member of Public Access Arts, the new voluntary run art venue in JKL St on Edenderry, which has almost singlehandedly transformed the visibility of artistic activity in Edenderry over the past year.

“The Promise” will open in Aras an Chontae at 6pm on February 28 and will continue to show from 9.30am to 4pm Monday to Friday until March 28. More information is available from catherinebreretonartist@gmail.com or arts@offalycoco.ie.