Final year art students at GMIT are making their break into public life as artists with an exciting exhibition of their work across a range of mediums this summer.
Twenty five art students from the BA in Contemporary Art programme at the School of Design and Creative Arts will showcase their work across sculpture, ceramics, paint, video, textiles, print, photography and digital media.
Galway-based, award-winning Swedish artist Cecilia Danell will open the exhibition at GMIT’s Cluain Mhuire campus on Saturday, June 1 at 2pm.
Áine Doherty from Oughterard, one of the art students exhibiting said that “The last four years here have been life changing.”
“As a mature student, I had expected to face challenges, and I was right,” she added.
“The environment created by the tutors and students here compels you to re-evaluate the very foundation by which we construct our thought processes about the world we come from and the freedom to imagine a future without boundaries. This is a safe place where wonder can happen”.
This exhibition is one of the cultural highlights of the summer art season in Galway, and marks an important milestone in the lives of these students as artists.
The ’25’ exhibition formally launches their careers to the public and invited guests and provides opportunities to promote their work and even experience their first sale as an artist.
The collating of the exhibition is largely self-led as students garner skills through past modules such as curation, professional practice and sustaining practice, to produce a show of appreciable value.
The graduating art students this year are from counties such as Galway, Mayo, Roscommon, Laois, Monaghan, Cork, Dongeal and Cavan.
Celine Curtin, Head of the Centre for Creative Arts & Media at GMIT said “The diversity of creative expression in this the end of year show is a clear reverberation of the unique voice of the exhibitors.
“We celebrate each artist and their work whilst also preparing to bid farewell to each and every one of them as they ready themselves to embark on their individual journey.”
After opening this show will run from 11am to 6pm daily until June 8.
photo: l-r Deirdre Crowley ‘The Riverbank’, Hugh Murphy ‘Displaced Nation lifeboat’, Maria Donegan ‘Going West’
