GMIT art students showcase their work in exciting Graduate Degree Show

Final-year art students in GMIT’s School of Design and Creative Arts will hold an exciting exhibition of their work in GMIT’s Cluain Mhuire campus, opening Saturday, 1 June, at 2pm. Galway-based, award-winning Swedish artist Cecilia Danell, a GMIT graduate, will open the show which runs daily from 11am to 6pm until 8 June.

Twenty-five students on the BA (Hons) in Contemporary Art programme will showcase their work in a range of disciplines such as sculpture, ceramics, paint, video, textiles, print, photography and digital media. The annual exhibition is a highlight of the arts calendar in the west.

The exhibition is an important milestone in the students’ lives. It formally launches their careers to the public and invited guests and provides opportunities to promote their work and even experience their first sale as an artist. The collating of the exhibition is largely self-led as students garner skills through past modules such as curation, professional practice and sustaining practice, to produce a show of appreciable value. The graduating artists are from counties such as Galway, Mayo, Roscommon, Laois, Monaghan, Cork, Dongeal and Cavan.

Celine Curtin, Head of Dept, Centre for Creative Arts & Media (CCAM), says: “The diversity of creative expression in this the end of year show is a clear reverberation of the unique voice of the exhibitors. We celebrate each artist and their work whilst also preparing to bid farewell to each and every one of them as they ready themselves to embark on their individual journey.”

Áine Doherty from Oughterard, Co Galway, one of the students exhibiting her work, says: “The last four years here have been life changing. As a mature student, I had expected to face challenges, and I was right. The environment created by the tutors and students here compels you to re-evaluate the very foundation by which we construct our thought processes about the world we come from and the freedom to imagine a future without boundaries. This is a safe place where wonder can happen”.

Marion McEnroy-Higgins, lecturer in Art History, GMIT, says; “Transformation doesn’t happen without effort, responding to direction and critique, and making calculated risks that push us beyond familiar thresholds, and with that comes growth. As a faculty, we have had lively, engaging dialogues in our lectures and studio practice with these students.”

Informal group tours are available on the opening day, 1 June, from 2pm, from the reception area.

For further details about this show, contact the students on contemporaryshow19@gmail.com or Heather Watson hkwatson@gmail.com /tel. 0863493486 or Áine Doherty tel. 0870929156.
Follow the students on facebook https://www.facebook.com/25exhibition/ and Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/25exhibition/
https://www.instagram.com/contemporaryartgmit/

For further details about this course, see:
https://www.gmit.ie/art-and-design/bachelor-arts-honours-contemporary-art

About Cecilia Danell: Cecilia is a graduate of GMIT’s Centre for Creative Arts & Media (CCAM) and has recently exhibited at the RHA. Read more: http://www.ceciliadanell.com

Issued by Regina Daly
GMIT Communications Officer
GMIT, Dublin Road, Galway
Tel. 091 742826 / 087-9618355 (m) regina.daly@gmit.ie
www.gmit.ie/news