8th August 2007

There is an exciting new show of recent graduates' work currently in Joan Clancy Gallery.

This new cutting edge work is bright and dynamic, and these recent graduates from National College of Art & Design, and Crawford College of Art & Design are already earning super accolades.

Roisin Kinsella received Cork Arts Society Student of the Year 2007, and Laura Fitzgerald won the RDS Freyer Award in 2005, and was short listed for the Markievicz Medal in 04 and 05.

Benjamin Crawford's large scale works are amazing, while Nicola Ní Dhroma's female forms in oil on canvas are smart and sophisticated. Catherine Tomkins gives the viewer much material for contemplation in her oils on canvas as she conceals and reveals "nothing is found in everything and everything in nothing". Mary Clancy's isolated detail and play of light and shadow are most effective. "Light squeezes from the tube into small stories, describing edge, rounds and time" she explains.

Also included are works from Jeannine Storan. "You can think more than one thing of a person at the same time and they can all be true, but one thing seems to be truer, the clandestine thing." she quotes from Edna O'Brien in relation to her wonderful photographic images.

Mary Clancy
Graduated with a 1st Class Honours Degree from the Crawford College of Art and Design in 2007. She was awarded the Eli Lilly Purchase Prize 2007, The Ernst and Young Award 2007 and was the recipient of the Countess Markievicz Gold Medal for Painting from the Dublin Arts Society in 2004. Her work is in the collections of Eli Lilly, The University Dental School and Hospital, Cork, The Cork Institute of Technology and The Capella Castlemartyr Hotel, Co. Cork. Mary is currently exhibiting at The Royal Dublin Society Student Art Awards Exhibition in Dublin.

Aidan Dunne wrote in The Irish Times 27th June 2007 …Mary Clancy has already made a breakthrough. Her small, precisely articulated, representational paintings are as multi-faceted as cut glass, opening out into complex spatial worlds. They are altogether there, accomplished by any standard...

Benjamin Crawford
Born in 1983 in Cork City. Graduated from Crawford College of Art & Design with a First Honours Degree in Fine Art in 2007. "There are distorted, exaggerated and perhaps childlike imageries in my paintings" he says. "As I paint I try and approach the whole venture with a sense of exploration and discovery, as if I was seeing things for the first time. Nothing is ever quite the way I see it in real life, it always seems to get jumbled up together and then it comes out looking a bit strange. But that's how I like it."

Roisin Kinsella
Graduated from Crawford College of Art & Design in 2007, and received Cork Arts Society Student of the Year 2007. "I describe my paintings as journeys to places of quiet anticipation... Going beyond the mere appearance of things to discover the hidden inscape…".(www.joanclancygallery.com)

Nicola Ní Dhroma
From the County Waterford Gaeltacht, graduated from Crawford College of Art & Design in 2007. "My work is autographical, primarily dealing with the female form and composition."

Catherine Tomkins
"With regards to my Bio, it's simply 'Has just finished 4 years in The Crawford College of Art and Design!'"

The Grad's Show runs in Joan Clancy Gallery until August 19th daily including weekends from 11 - 5pm. Summer Group Show continues outside of the main exhibition space. Well worth a visit to this feast of contemporary art. Joan Clancy Gallery, County Waterford's unique Gaeltacht gallery.

More Information: on 086 813 4597 info@joanclancygallery.com.