Marilin North Artist

Six drawings of out buildings and cowsheds on round canvases

Installation shot of an exhibition called Outbuilding

I was invited to show work at the Source Gallery in Tipperary alongside John O'Reilly and John Kennedy in April 2021.

The show looked at depictions of functional, prefabricated or kit-built rural and urban buildings that have are perceived as being of low architectural value.

The brief for the show read as follows:

"Notwithstanding their design qualities, buildings have a value other than their monetary value in respect of their age, their location, their purpose and their history, their commissioners, architects or builders and whether they are built to be obsolete in a short period. In respect of these elements, they make a statement about themselves and accrue a status.

This exhibition, then looks at depictions of 'low-status' buildings. The images by the three Artists naturally reassess the buildings and their value and the exhibiton looks at how image-making can create, identify or add value to what can be regarded as the functional and mundane."

Several of my drawings of demountable agricultural sheds and shed frames were shown in the exhibiton.

You can view the exhibition online here

Portraits for heroes was a concept first thought up by UK artist Tom Croft during Lockdown, artists were matched up with Doctors, nurses and health-workers and the artists created portraits for them in recognition of their commitment and bravery during the pandemic. To read more about the original UK campaign, click here. To read about the Irish campaign lead by Bernadette Doolan click here

My subjects were two Sligo residents: Doctor Seán O'Flynn and Care Worker and Artist Niall Sheerin.

A drawing a Day for 30 days

This series of portraits is my response to the brief put forth by French artist Claire de Chavagnac to the members of an online group of international artists: 'Drawing Box International'.

In the Introduction to the catalogue, Claire writes "In the context of global sanitary confinement, the 42 international artists took up the challange that was proposed and made one drawing every day for one month on the same subject, size 20x20cm or A5. Often far from their workshops or deprived of their tools, they have had to adapt their choice and means of implementation to the situation."

5 of each artist's drawings were shown in Brittany and Paris in 2021.

Hamilton Gallery Sligo

Strange fires and frosts burnt out the season's dross, Charcoal on canvas, 30x30cm. This drawing is my response to a poem called 'The weaver' by Eva Gore-Booth.

Brigid's Day, Invited women artists, Eva Gore-Booth was exhibited in the Museum of Irish Literature in Dublin in 2021. Read a press release about the show here

Yeats Day, Among School Children. This painting is inspired by the lines "Labour is blossoming or dancing; where the body is not bruised to pleasure soul", it is now in a private collection in London.

Yeats Day, Meditations in time of civil war, 2021. 'Where the symbolic rose can break in flower, charcoal on canvas, 30 x 30 cm.

Brigid's Day, Invited women artists, The theme of the show is a beautiful specially commissioned poem by Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin called 'Brigid's Well' will tour Irish embassies in 2022. Read more about the poem and the show here.

'The excess of Water?, The excess of all the stories' Charcoal on canvas, 30 x 30cm

Vernaculus

A selection from this series of drawings was shown in the Hamilton Gallery in December 2019 as part of a group show called '2020 Vision'. Read a press release about the show here

This body of work: ‘Vernaculus’ explores the sense of identity, home and place in contemporary rural Ireland: works featuring fragments of self–build houses and gardens are juxtaposed against representations of the wilder land farmed around such homes, highlighting tension between the wild and the cultivated in places where people inhabit deep countryside.

The series consists of monochrome drawings made with soluble pencils which are deliberately distorted and partially washed away by the addition of water and ink.

Man-made structures are rendered in a pared-down and stark manner and removed from the context of their immediate surroundings: the everyday and over-looked become exotic. Agricultural detritus, monkey puzzle trees, gateposts topped with concrete ornaments and the profiles and windows of modern houses melt into a field of pigment diluted, carried and deposited by water to create varying concentrations of colour, distortions and tidemarks.

Marilin North, photograph, Land of Nod series

Photographs

Land of Nod, an ongoing project

These photographs were taken whilst walking and exploring the human-generated ecotone connecting farmed land with forest and mountainside in Leitrim. The poet Adam Rooke has collaborated with me and wrote a piece in response to these photographs which gives the series it's title, 'Land of Nod'.