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IRISH ARTISTS FOR VENICE BIENNALE 2009 ANNOUNCED - KENNEDY AND BROWNE TO REPRESENT IRELAND AT WORLD’S MOST PRESTIGOUS ART EVENT

29th May 2008 Caoimhín Corrigan, Irish Commissioner at the 2009 Venice Biennale and Culture Ireland, in partnership with The Arts Council, today announced the Irish artists selected for Venice 2009. Sarah Browne and Gareth Kennedy will represent Ireland at next years’ biennale; both graduated from the National College of Art and Design in 2003. 

Gareth Kennedy has already exhibited in Ireland, England, Scotland, USA and Thailand.  His practice concerns itself with experiential work and solutions to matters which often arise as a confluence of the global and the local.  Although grounded within his background as a sculptor, his practice embraces contemporary realities inherent within economic, environmental, social and aesthetic realities.  He has consistently sought to walk the line where his works function as art, and are clearly recognised as art, but also act as an interface with everyday situations.

Since she graduated from NCAD, Sarah Browne has participated in projects, residencies and artist exchanges in Ireland, Japan, Iceland, and the UK. Along with exhibiting in these countries, she has also presented her work in Poland and China. In 2006 she was awarded the Apexart international residency in New York. Her work is an investigation of macro social structures through discussion with micro-audiences. Through dialogue with different voices, her work touches on ideas of happiness, life satisfaction, and a sense of aspiration, identity and belonging.  Her practice includes exhibitions, publishing, collaborations and critical writing.

Commenting on the selection, Corrigan said:  “Gareth and Sarah are both artists who operate with great integrity and professionalism.  Furthermore, I believe their selection is well suited to the Biennale context where the audience often faces a challenge just to see all the work on show, let alone make time for any of it to make an impression.  Within Sarah’s work, the seemingly familiar will open the door for the viewer to make time to engage with the more textured nature of her work.  With Gareth, I believe the poetics of his work will come very much to the fore at the Biennale, while his vision and skill as a maker are also likely to afford him the chance to stand apart from the crowd”.

Sarah Browne said: “It’s a huge honour for any artist to be selected as part of Ireland’s representation at the Venice Biennale.  It also represents an exciting opportunity, and I think the selection of Gareth Kennedy and myself for Venice 2009 is a great expression of confidence in our respective practices by the Arts Council and Culture Ireland”.

Kennedy and Browne also have a collaborative practice which is likely to feature as a ‘third artist’ at Venice 2009.  These collaborations seek to create incongruous territories between ‘real’ and artificial; fact and fiction; politics and kitsch, and a new collaborative work with a site-responsive dimension is being considered for the Biennale.