walk the line

Local poet John Brown and the Dutch artists Tjibbe Hooghiemstra and Arno Kramer have known each other for some years. Now all three will work together in a residency to produce exciting new work, tailored for the Centre. This exhibition is about the transforming mystery of good drawing – its ability to freeze and flow like water. Good drawing exceeds and confuses truth by mixing up the real and imagined or ‘taking the line for a walk’ as Paul Klee once put it. In John Brown’s view there are less ‘cover-ups’ in drawing than painting, there is something accidental, more naked and exposed about drawing than writing or talk.

Artists Tjibbe and Arno often use text within their work whether through titles, text as image, accompanying poetry or palimpsest, on the very paper supporting the image. In this dynamic exhibition two visual artists and one poet negotiate the diverging and overlapping lines between two ‘shapeshifters’ – poetry and drawing, between the sequential evocations of writing and the continuous, immediately present drawn image. Using Brown’s text as a starting point all three have worked through a process of experimentation to create an installation where words and drawings intertwine into one, consisting of fragile works on paper and site specific work directly onto our gallery walls.

This installation will also include opportunities for community engagement. For a pdf version of the exhibition preview invitation, click here

Arno Kramer works as a visual artist in the Netherlands and Ireland. His work has been displayed in the Netherlands, Ireland, England and the USA, Sweden and Germany and has been acquired by Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum Twenthe Enschede, Museum de Fundatie Heino and the Limerick City Gallery of Art amongst others.

Tjibbe Hooghiemstra is also based in the Netherlands and Ireland. He teaches at the Academy of Arts in Grins and at the National College of Art & Design, Dublin, whilst exhibiting in Europe, America and Japan. His work has been acquired by acclaimed organisations including Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam and Tate Gallery, London.

John Brown is a poet based in Ballykelly. He is currently Writer in Residence for the Prison Arts Foundation and worked as Literature Officer with the Arts Council of Northern Ireland for several years. John has produced one collection of poems as well as editing various books and magazines on Irish poetry and prose.