New exhibition announced for GOMA Waterford

'Idle Walls' is an upcoming exhibition coming to GOMA Waterford this July and running until August 31.

The work is described as a 'layered story of displacement and the unseen lines of connection between the Irish horticultural industry and the colonial resource exploitation of the occupied territories of Western Sahara'.

Custom made active walls will replace the gallery walls to display a series of paintings that were inspired by a 'Jaima', the traditional tent of the nomadic Sahrawi people. 

The exhibition was created by Bryan Gerard Duffy, a multi-disciplinary artist working in paint, sculpture, lens-based work, moving image and installation. 

Explaining the motivation behind the work, he said: “You are invited to manoeuvre these active walls around the spaces, becoming an active curator.

"My imagined pen pal, Aria, is a Sahrawi teacher who frequently wrote to me updating me on life in the Tindouf refugee camps, Algeria, her home in exile. 

"Aria and I played and studied chess as a means of passing the time, and the recorded moves became a starting point for my paintings. The Sahrawi’s speak of being used as pawns in the West’s sinister game of chess; where chess is a metaphor for war."

“This work is a conversation on the societal challenges of retaining one’s identity in the face of adversity.

"My paintings not only suggest a battle between the concept and the process in painting, but also between the artist and the audience.” 

Duffy’s practice is known to investigate the natural world seeping through the cracks of urban surfaces. 

His method of art making begins by walking the streets extracting samples of plants which pierce through the urban surfaces.