staring forms is a group exhibition at Temple Bar Gallery + Studios that includes artworks by Miranda Blennerhassett, Aleana Egan, Andreas Kindler von Knobloch, and Tanad Williams. Each artist was approached to work on this exhibition as they have a pre-existing interest and engagement with architecture and interior spaces. The artists selected and shared texts with each other that related to their individual perceptions of these ideas, and many conversations between the artists and TBG+S took place during the development and production of artworks for this exhibition. Miranda Blennerhassett’s site-responsive wall installation draws attention to the shared labour of women in traditional textile production. Aleana Egan’s work examines the transformation of the interior dream into the external reality as conveyed in Marion Milner’s text ‘On Not Being Able to Paint’. Andreas Kindler von Knobloch has constructed a set of movable wall panels that enable visitors to adapt their own experience of moving through the gallery space. Tanad Williams gives agency to his sculptures by focussing attention back on the viewer, and allowing the materials they are assembled from to adapt to different roles than their intended purpose in everyday life.

I am the Programme Curator at Temple Bar Gallery + Studios and I work with exhibiting artists to realise their vision of displaying their work in our gallery. I also work closely with the 25-30 artists who occupy the studios in our building and facilitate their requirements in their workspaces, as well as helping to promote their work outside of our organisation. I work throughout the building on its upkeep and development and along with the Director, Cliodhna Shaffrey, and our colleagues we aim to adapt and expand our role as Ireland’s leading combined gallery and studio complex.

I do not come from an architecture background but the physicality and history of our building is very important in the way I consider the role and function of the gallery and studios. The building we work from was redeveloped in the early 1990s by McCullough Melvin architects, from its original function as a clothing factory built in the 1930s. The architecture and spirit of the building still maintains a strong connection to industry and production as many artists work from here each day and produce artworks that are shown and exhibited around the globe. TBG+S studio artist, Ronan McCrea, recently described the building as a factory; with production taking place on the upper floors in the studios and the means of distribution as the gallery at ground level.

staring forms was conceived as a collaborative project composed of the individual qualities and work of four distinct artistic practices. The conversations that took place during the planning stages are continued through the relationships between the works in the exhibition. These connections include formal qualities such as texture, materiality and patterning, as well as more conceptual links such as labour, enclosure and the viewer’s participation in the conversation. We also opened up a number of small, previously covered, architectural features of our building as a way of adding to the threads of ornamentation and functionality that were also introduced by the artists’ works.

With all exhibitions, the conversations between the artists, artworks and viewers are what generate interest and excitement and new ways of thinking. It is always an ambition for us to encourage audiences to observe what they see around them with scrutiny and imagination, whether it is works of art, our building, literature, and the outside world. We hope that this exhibition provides enough starting points for these processes to begin, as well as giving space and time for ideas to develop.