GOLD SHIFT | GIAF 2025 | JOAN SUGRUE
Engage Art Studios are thrilled to announce our exciting new solo exhibition by JOAN SUGRUE as part of Galway International Arts Festival 2025.
GOLD SHIFT is curated by AoiFe Banks And will launch on :
Sunday, July 13th at 12pm
Engage Art Studios, Churchfields, Salthill.
The exhibition will run until July 27th, 2025. For more information visit giaf.ie
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Joan Sugrue’s painting practice reflects her continued interest in colonialism and power politics. The work is a reflection of her mixed childhood memories as well as newly found research carried out for each body of work. Portraiture is of particular concern to the artist not least as its importance in the tracing of lines and links to the long history of art. However rather than focusing on particular real persons from history, the portraits that the artist creates are fantasy personas, often faceless, set within imagined narratives or themes. Painted as garish or cartoonish images, transgressions are made which open up the work to a wider discussion on colonial and post-colonial visual representation.
Dr Phillina Sun, a writer based in the Northwest of Ireland was commissioned to write a text for the exhibition. Text by Philiina Sun
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Joan Sugrue is a painter based in County Galway with a fine art degree from GMIT. She has taken part in many curated exhibitions at home including Carlow Arts Festival, RHA, the Highlanes Gallery, and the Linenhall. Internationally she has exhibited in Bejing, China and the UK. She was a director of G126 Artist Led Gallery, Galway for two years (2013-2015) and is currently a member of Engage Studios. She has exhibited in the Marmite Prize V, the Contemporary British Prize for Painting, and the Elysium Gallery (Wales). She has been the recipient of grants from Galway County Council and the Arts Council and has work in the Arts Council collection. please see her website www.joansugrue.com/
Aoife Banks is a contemporary visual arts curator, writer, and researcher. Her curatorial practice is rooted in the exploration of visual, social, and political cultures through a queer, decolonial praxis. With a strong focus on collaboration with artists, curators, and writers, Aoife aims to engage with and develop current Irish contemporary art through the commissioning of solo projects by Irish and international artists, alongside thematic group exhibitions.
Aoife is currently the Curator and Programming Coordinator of Luan Gallery. Previously, Aoife has curated contemporary visual art exhibitions and managed public engagement programmes for galleries and cultural institutions across Ireland. Aoife received her joint BA in Fine Art and Visual Culture in 2018 and MA in Visual Culture, Art in the Contemporary World, in 2020 at the National College of Art and Design.