'God' is the forthcoming exhibition from Bea McMahon and Conor McFeely. Marking the pair's first collaboration, the preview will take place on Friday, 13 December from 6-8pm at The Gallery. Read on to find out more about the artists, their process, and the exhibition itself, from Complex curator Mark O'Gorman.
Initially introduced by the Curated Visual Arts Award from The Arts Council of Ireland and Arts Council of Northern Ireland in 2007, Conor McFeely and Bea McMahon exhibited their works in Dublin and Derry under the curation of Mike Nelson. Although they did not get to know each other well at the time, this shared experience has become a reference point for them both. My fundamental interest in making exhibitions is bringing artists together to develop work in conversation. Artists that don’t know each other personally, have a distance between them geographically, and share concerns within their practice that have the potential to collide. The act of getting to know one another is integral to this process; the resulting entanglement holds greater value than the physical work produced.
I arranged a series of visits that facilitated introductions and created points of contact between the artists. One of note was an informal hunt for William Rowan Hamilton, the renowned Irish mathematician, astronomer, and physicist whose resting place we thought was in the crypts at St. Michan's Church in Dublin. It wasn't. Alexander Grothendieck was another mathematician involved in Bea and Conor’s early conversations and sparked a mutual curiosity early on centering around mathematics, anarchy and God.
Grothendieck believed that mathematics and God are mutually exclusive. His retreat from academia into mysticism in the 1970s continues to ignite conversations between both artists. Further references for the artists span Gilles Châtelet’s work on spatial understanding, number stations, azimuths, celestial bodies, bats, Benjamin Labatut’s When We Cease to Understand the World, Alexander Grothendieck's Life and Anarchist Origins as recounted by Winfried Scharlau, Stella Maris by Cormac McCarthy, Gaudete by Ted Hughes, Hakim Bey’s T.A.Z. (Temporary Autonomous Zone, Ontological Anarchy, Poetic Terrorism),
Stephan Wolfram’s concept of the Ruliad and the dream recordings of Dion McGregor.
Bea and Conor share an interest in finding or happening upon materials that stimulate new ideas. These material sources may arise not only from our perceived physical reality (every species, from ants to mammals, perceives the universe in a way that eludes all others) but also from altered states of consciousness, whether through sleep or sleeplessness. A video developed for the exhibition represents a dive into insomniac ruminations. Like Grothendieck, dreams have been a recurring meeting point for the artists. Some works in the exhibition have been extracted directly from the artist's dreams and made physical in The Gallery. For instance, one sculpture references a dream in which a table was laden with
fishy snacks.
Alexander Grothendieck was believed to view dreams not merely as random mental events but as a means to interface with God and get to know yourself, offering glimpses into reality beyond rationality. GOD seeks to observe the backgrounds that appear in dreams. Backgrounds that shift seamlessly from one scene to the next, setting the stage for whatever reflections come along.
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Conor McFeely lives and works in Derry, N.Ireland. He has exhibited widely nationally and
internationally. His work incorporates a wide range of processes, from the ready–made to sculpture and installation, as well as photography, video and audio. A fracturing and manipulation of ‘material’ in the service of finding new relationships is a chief characteristic of his practice. Often conceived as multi-layered in terms of their reading, many works have been driven by a consideration of the nature of individual freewill, choice and autonomy. Contexts and source material reflect interests in a history of counter culture, literature and social contexts. The work is cyclical in nature and his recent projects which include Electric Citizen, an Art Arcadia Residency Derry 2022, The Mariner series (ongoing), Pioneers and The Weatherman Projects point to historical episodes of exploration, invention, experimentation, altered states and interruptions of consciousness. His project Azimuth PointZero was shown this earlier year at The Mac, Belfast as part of The Weight of Light, a collaboration with Pascale Steven.
Bea McMahon uses many different media including sculpture, performance, song, dance,
moving image and installation, often working in collaboration with others. Trained in mathematics and mathematical physics, she navigates through conceptions of reality and their corresponding appearances in the outside world. Recent collaborations include Pilot a TV series shot in various locations including Treignac Projet, FR and Kunstverein Aughrim IE (ongoing); Another Shot at Love, a romantic comedy commissioned for the 40th EVA biennale in Limerick, IE 2023; live performance with lip-synching pop group Dina from Egypt in I’ll be your Mirror, Hugh Lane Gallery, IE 2023 and pop-video-smash-hits magazine launch at Framerframed, Amsterdam NL 2024.
Recent exhibitions include Animal Farm, Paper Biennale, Museum Rijkswijk, The Hague, NL 2024; Sequins, with Maaike Schoorel at Shimmer, Rotterdam, NL 2023; Floppy
Forest at Treignac Projet, FR 2021; and group shows Ad Ampio Respira, Artopia Gallery,
Milan 2022; Under Bat Hill at W139, Amsterdam 2021.
The Gallery is situated at 21-25 Arran St E, Smithfield, Dublin 7, D07 YY97 and the bar will be open after the preview on the 13 December.
Proudly supported by the Arts Council of Ireland, Dublin City Council.