Soft Fascination Exhibition Catalogue

SOFT FASCINATION

ARTISTS

Genevieve KING

Christine PRESCOTT

Caroline REAPY

Bridget RYAN

Ian WIECZOREK

CURATED BY Marianne O’KANE BOAL

AN EXHIBITION PRESENTED IN ASSOCIATION WITH THE LINENHALL BOLAY PROGRAMME 2025

SOFT FASCINATION

Soft Fascination

“A fractal is a pattern found in nature that repeats itself over and over, often going from big to small, for example, the way a tree grows, dividing and multiplying up, up, up; leaf veins; an uncurling fern; snowflakes; rivers, their tributaries; and our own internal circulation system. Fractal patterns cause a soft fascination, having a proven relaxing effect on our amygdala, significantly reducing stress. We have evolved to respond to these patterns found in nature, they stimulate a sense of awe causing us to pause and calm.” - Christine Prescott

The title ‘Soft Fascination’ was developed through group discussion and suggested by Christine Prescott. This concept has informed Prescott’s artwork, particularly her site-responsive practice of ‘forest-bathing’, and it has a broader resonance for the Bolay artists. At a time when technology and artificial intelligence are creating a virtual world that demands increasing amounts of our attention, it has never been more important to find pause points for looking and listening to nature. Attention Restoration Theory, with its fitting acronym ‘ART’, sees nature become the wellspring and source for attention restoration, for recalibrating ourselves. Attentional ecology is the means by which individuals respond to their environment, and if the environment is settling, peaceful and calming, then mental functioning operates on a similar trajectory, which can be helpful for informing creativity and a positive flow of thoughts and ideas.

The exhibition begins with ‘Still’ by Christine Prescott. This piece is made with natural materials in the most complete sense; minutely stitched garlic skins, suspended with strands of hair. As the artist observes ‘stillness is revelatory’ and the exhibition invites the viewer to quieten the mind in preparation for engagement with the soft fascination thematic. There is a subtle shifting of the skins as they are moved in and out of stillness by the air currents in the gallery. This ethereal artwork is followed by Prescott’s drawing triptych ‘A Shifting, A Beckoning, A

Muttering’, and this title continues the subtlety of the invitation whereby there is an offer for engagement but one that is whispered. These are wine drawings that meditate on a slower sense of time. They feature ‘repetitive, circular mark-making. My drawings lace red wine on paper, a material chosen not only for its sensuality but for its embodied contradictions of memory and forgetfulness, preservation and decay.’ Her final wine drawing within the exhibition ‘Love Letters to Dust,’ is a quiet homage to the dust storms of her homeland.

The exhibition continues with five works by Bridget Ryan who documents her local environment in prints and paintings and these demonstrate her interest in sharing the experience of what she knows well and feels deeply. For Ryan immersion in the landscape has always informed her practice and this is central to positively informing her wellbeing. In ‘Early Dawning – Summer Morning,’ she features a vista that celebrates the high colour of the green fields and the raking sun. ‘Lost in Blue’ is essentially a portrait of Lough Corrib and the vibrancy of the pigment lends depth to the expanse of water. ‘Fleeting Colours’ is created in the artist’s signature style of semi-patchwork fields, and her prints continue the thread of blue to take the viewer towards night. Through documenting the locality, its textured fields, cottages, and lakes, Ryan traces the path of the day from dawn until dusk through light, colour and form.

Genevieve King has created a range of watercolours that reflect her habitual walks and time spent in the grounds of Westport House. These paintings are initiated on site in the natural surroundings of the estate and they feature the boathouse, trees, forest and Carrowbeg River. The titles of the works echo the felt experience and quiet contemplation of the scenes. King works directly with watercolour and intuitively builds up her landscapes creating compositional depth and an ethereal ambience with trees and buildings faded in the middle ground. There is a balance achieved through the creation of watercolour and space on the page that reflects the emotion and restraint invested. Within the exhibition, King’s work ‘Still Season,’ a forest study is flanked by ‘The Boathouse’ at Westport House, and ‘First Light’ breaking over the enigmatic castle ruins shrouded in ethereal light. Her remaining works ‘Sentinel I’ and ‘Sentinel II’ are akin to tree portraits, where the distinctive trees on the grounds of the estate have their own individual character.

Ian Wieczorek aligns the theme with the dialogue between artist and viewer where each artist works instinctively with their own processes and the consequent artworks act as an invitation to the viewer to encourage their own intuitive response to be formed and considered as they stand before the pieces within the exhibition. This establishes an open-ended conversation between his handmade analogue copperplate etchings and digital/AI mediated animation. In the gallery space, Wieczorek’s animation entitled ‘Flux’ is akin to a living canvas as its marks move, morph and mutate; creating forms and casting shadows. Within this, the artist has taken his own etchings into the realm of artificial intelligence to deliberately manipulate them on his terms. Alongside the animation, Wieczorek’s four etchings show his work at rest. There is a discourse established between the moving and still image that echoes a living rhythm; that of the human heart perhaps, or the murmuration of birds within nature.

Finally, Caroline Reapy also reacts to nature as a living landscape, with the work recording ‘observations and responses to an environment that is cyclical, in constant flux and everchanging.’ Her work process observes the rhythm and flow of her home environment and she is particularly drawn to the nearby Cloondroon Lake, where she sketches in charcoal by the water’s edge. The title for her detailed drawing of the lake ‘An Loch Céanna’ (the same lake) underlines her on-going interest in capturing this changing space of the lakeside and bog land. The reed sculptures are created from harvested water reeds that have been split and joined in a canvas bed to unearth their intrinsic aesthetic and form. They are echoes of an important place. Reapy feels the connection with this local environment enriches her life experience and understanding, as she attempts to discover the core of her fascination through continued investigation.

Dr Marianne O’Kane Boal (Exhibition curator)

Genevieve KING

Genevieve King is an artist based at Custom House Studios, Westport Quay.

She has a Higher Diploma in Art, Design & Textiles at Galway R.T.C. and a B.A. (Hons) Degree in Design & Textiles from the National College of Art and Design.

King has worked as community facilitator and an art educator at secondary and tertiary level. She is recipient of an Agility Award from the Arts Council of Ireland (2022) and the Mayo Artist Bursary (2022). Her work has featured in many group exhibitions in Ireland, as well as in a number of solo exhibitions. Recently her work has been selected for Carrying the Songs, a group exhibition curated by Martina Hamilton at the Pulchri Studio, the Hague, in association with the Embassy of Ireland in the Netherlands.

Instagram: @genvievekingart Sentinel I watercolour on paper, 55x33cm

Website: www.genevievekingartist.com

Email: genevievekingartist@gmail.com

Christine PRESCOTT

A Shifting, A Beckoning, A Muttering, red wine on paper, 150x310cm

Christine Prescott is a contemporary Australian artist who has been working as Artist-in-Residence at the Custom House Studios + Galleries, Westport, for the last three years. Her distinctive practice combines sculptural assemblages with works on paper, all created from organic and foraged materials.

Rooted in an intimate engagement with the natural world, her work explores themes of nurture, memory and the spirit-of-place through the repetitive processes of harvesting, weaving, stitching, and mark-making. These slow, meditative rituals form the foundation of her practice, resulting in contemplative works that invite reflection, promoting a deeper awareness of material and landscape. Prescott received a BFA from the University of Southern Queensland (2000) and a PGDip from the Victorian College of Arts, Melbourne (2002). She has exhibited throughout Australia, Ireland, Germany, Singapore and Indonesia. Her work has been supported by the Australian Council for the Arts, the Arts Council of Ireland, Mayo County Council Arts Service and is held in private collections internationally.

Website: www.christineprescottstudio.com Email: christineprescottstudio@gmail.com

Instagram: @thingsofthedirt

Caroline REAPY

Caroline Reapy is an emerging visual artist and graphic designer based in Ballindine, Co. Mayo. A 2024 graduate of ATU Galway, Reapy studied Graphic Design and Illustration at the School of Design and Creative Arts. She employs traditional and experimental processes incorporating charcoal, graphite and found materials. She also explores digital image-making to inform her work, creating mostly monochrome and high-contrast mixed-media output with themes examining impermanence and natural order. Her creative literary work is featured in the ATU library’s permanent collection. Selected for inclusion at the Mayo Artists Show Exhibition 2025/26, she exhibited at both Ballina Arts Centre and Linenhall Arts Centre. She is an awardee of the Mayo Artist Bursary 2026.

Website: carolinereapy.wordpress.com Email: reapydesign@gmail.com Instagram: @carolinereapy

Bridget RYAN

Bridget Ryan studied at G.M.I.T Galway (now ATU Galway), completing a Diploma in Art and Design in 2003, and a B.A. in Fine Art (Hons) in 2004. She has had solo exhibitions in the Gerard Dillon Gallery, Belfast, Streamline Salon, San Francisco and Whitney Modern Gallery, Los Gatos, California. Ryan portrays old houses, farm buildings and the landscapes and seascapes of her native Connemara. The resulting pieces do not conform to the traditional model of landscapes, but come from her inner perspective of the unique character of those historic structures and the sparse, often desolate atmosphere of the surrounding countryside.

Website: bridgetryanartist.ie Email: bridie.ryan@gmail.com Instagram: @bridie_ryan

Ian WIECZOREK

Flux, animation video stills sequence

Ian Wieczorek is a visual artist working predominantly in painting, lens-based media, print and installation. A graduate of GMIT Castlebar Campus (now part of ATU), since 2003 he has exhibited widely both in Ireland, and internationally, with participation in group/curated shows in N. Ireland, Germany, France, Portugal, Sweden, Austria, Switzerland, Denmark, Latvia, USA, Taiwan, Hong Kong, China and Thailand; solo exhibitions (17 to date) in Ireland, N. Ireland, UK and Czechia; and public art installations in Ireland and France. He has devised and curated 18 shows in Ireland, and has undertaken residencies in Ireland, UK, France and Austria. His work is engaged primarily with contemporary cultural experience, and the transactional relationships that exist between the individual and the global.

Website: www.ianwieczorek.com Email: ianwieczorek8@gmail.com

Instagram: @ian_wieczorek_artist

Marianne O’KANE BOAL (Curator)

Marianne O’Kane Boal is a well-known curator and writer on art and architecture. She has written extensively on these subjects over the past 25 years. She writes for the Irish Arts Review, Circa, Perspective, Living Design, Visual Artists Newsletter and Architecture Ireland. She has curated over 50 exhibitions in Ireland and Northern Ireland.

Marianne completed her PhD in Social Research at ATU Sligo in 2023. She is President of the Irish Section of AICA (International Association of Art Critics) and Expert Advisor on Art for the Ministerial Advisory Group on Architecture and the Built Environment in Northern Ireland. She has been delivering webinars and professional development workshops for Visual Artists Ireland for over fifteen years since 2009 on curating, creative proposals, presenting work, writing about practice and public art. She has presented at conferences in Zurich, Prague, Chile, Belfast and Dublin.

With thanks to Curator/Mentor

MARIANNE O’KANE BOAL and

THE LINENHALL BOLAY PROGRAMME 2025