Please join us for the first US solo show by Irish artist Aoife Collins. Featured in the main gallery, the exhibition Wet Eye charts eight months of new work realized in the studio during her residency at Location One.

To the artist the title of the show is “a word play on sentimentality or melancholy with the implied act of crying.” This is reinforced by the general macabre quality of the works and the romantic imagery that is often at play.

Central to Aoife’s current investigation is the theme of transference in popular culture and its relationship to historical figures. Her creative process unfolds with distinct works created through a variety of mediums: oil paintings, collages, wall installations, reconfigured flower arrangements and a sound piece. Two series are dedicated to Baudelaire, Les Fleurs du mal, and his influence on contemporary culture. A wall-sized collage refers to Artaud’s imagery and elements of his life. A soundpiece, entitled Downward Social Mobility examines the role of repetition and the power of catchphrases in media culture.

Aoife’s interdisciplinary practice is shaped by recurrent themes of permutation, multiplicity, cultural paraphernalia and mass identification. Works are made out of existing materials, substances and structures that are transferred into new forms of narration. In her attempt to open up the realm of possibility, the artist pays close attention to the ability of objects to role-play and the extent of their mutability.