June 3-26, 2016

REPRESSION | RESURGENCE | REEMERGENCE

Solas Nua, in collaboration with Hillyer Art Space, is proud to relaunch its visual arts programming with the exhibition Repression | Resurgence | Reemergence: One Hundred Years of Re-possessing and Re-appropriating Irish Identity. This year marks the centennial anniversary of the 1916 Easter Rising in Ireland, a pivotal point in Irish history that served as a catalyst for the beginning of the end of the British occupation of Ireland. To commemorate this seminal moment, Solas Nua curator Jackie Hoysted, invited a number of visual artists to create works that investigates Irish cultural identity. The Irish nationalist Thomas Davis is quoted as stating that “it is not blood that makes you Irish but a willingness to be part of the Irish Nation.” To that end, the exhibition includes a sampling of artists for whom Ireland is their own or their forefathers’ birthplace, or their adopted home.
The artists were invited to ponder what it means to be Irish and what is meant by the term “Irishness.” Is it a line of heritage, or a Celtic cultural bond? Is it a shared heritage of stories, or a shared way of life? Perhaps it is a certain look or a collection of sounds, a common sense of thinking? Today the cultural landscape in Ireland is rich and diverse and quite different than what it may have been in 1916. Who are the Irish today, how has the past shaped them and how are they shaping the Irish of the future?

Exhibiting Artists
Ursula Burke
Conall Cary
Erin Devine
Jennie Guy
Dragana Jurisic
Vanessa Donoso Lopez
Colette Murphy
Eva O’Leary
Helen O’Leary
Bart O’Reilly
Maryanne Pollock
The Project Twins
(Michael & James Fitzgerald).

Solas Nua, meaning ‘new light’ in Irish, is a 501(c)3 non-profit and the only organization in the United States dedicated exclusively to contemporary Irish arts. Their mission to bring the best new Irish artistic talent to American audiences began in 2005 with the smash hit play Disco Pigs by Enda Walsh. Since then we have presented theater, music, visual arts, film, and literary events including the Capital Irish Film Festival and Irish Book Day.