Exhibition Closing Event: dangle, align, topple

dangle, align, topple by Rosie O’Gorman: a closing event at deAppendix, Dublin

Date & Time: Tuesday, November 19th, 6 pm – 8 pm

Location: deAppendix Cultural Space, 30 Ardagh Grove, Blackrock, Co. Dublin

For the past month, new works by Cow House Co-Director Rosie O’Gorman have been on display at deAppendix, a cultural space co-located with a GP surgery. Through its program deAppendix challenges how such spaces are activated and in so doing questions accepted norms for this genre of space. This event provides an opportunity for the general public to view the exhibition. Please join us for a closing event on Tuesday, November 19th from 6 pm – 8 pm.

This exhibition includes photographs, paintings and two handmade books. This work is a reflection on the precarity of memory, the vulnerability of motherhood, and the importance of making as a means to fulfilment. This work began in 2012 shortly after Rosie’s first son, Michael was born. She has been incubating these ideas; time passed has allowed her to reflect on its value and purpose in elevating the virtue of poignant moments.

dangle, align, topple reflects two years beginning when Michael was about 6 months old. Rosie started photographing the arrangements he created. Initially, some were accidental, but quickly they became more purposeful. She never intervened, but observed or simply came across his play. Over time, Michael became aware of his mother taking photos and he began to use the term “sculpture”. Rosie was drawn to his pleasure in learning how things rise and fall, how to risk and fail, of not knowing the prescribed order of things, and sees this collection of photographs all at once a mind map, a world map, a house map, a storyboard, a record, a crossword, a puzzle, and ultimately as Alain de Botton writes these images grapple to “accomplish a task that is of central importance in our lives: to hold onto things we love when they are gone.”

Michael’s experiments filtered into the arrangements in Rosie’s paintings. Huddle shows a mother and baby panda (curiously made of rabbit hair) staring at colourful but perhaps meaningless plastic straws. The second painting Not together attempts to anthropomorphise warmly coloured domestic objects.

Two handmade books document the early months of her two sons; Michael, now seven and Emmet three. The first book contains drawings and written notes made during Michael’s first year. A few days after Michael was born Rosie decided to make a drawing of him once a week. Notes written on the back of the drawings reflect on practicalities, observations and vulnerabilities as a new mother. Over time these drawings allowed for intimate connections with fleeting moments. The second book contains drawings of Emmet. This book is shorter; revealing the challenges with managing a growing family, and the different personality of a second baby. Michael’s drawings are included as he also becomes an author of the experience we both share.

“Your labour which gives form to desire, takes from desire its form.” – Italio Calvino