SHACKLAND, digital prints by SALLY BATELY
January 2006

Shackland' is the new exhibition from artist Sally Batley, starting in Ard Bia Café -  2 Quay Street from Monday 9th Jan, it runs for the next month.  Showcasing a collection of detailed scenic imagery, the artist continues to develop her exploration into the realm of digital media.

Shackland is a personal journey back to the artist's roots. From deep rural Suffolk she illustrates a series of snapshot locations depicting the complex multi-layered and extremely organic nature of the content.

Shackland is a window into the wonderful world of tranquil simplicity, where existence results from harmony. A place that knows nothing of time, it is a place that will always remain as somewhat fairytale. 

Group show- Selma Makela, Eoin O Connor, Leda Scully, Glen Fitzgerald
'Fragility'

1 - 31 September 2005

A group show concerned with the fragility of art ideas, mediums and artists within artworks. The exhibition explores the idea of art being precious and delicate, both in subject matter and execution.

Tulca visual arts festival club
11pm til 2am on Saturdays (November 05)

Come to Ard Bia restaurant  for the Tulca festival club every Saturday night in November.

Plat du soir: Subliminal visuals
                  experimental music
                  dj sets
                  wine
                  surprise du chef 

Kieran Moore 'Oh My Pregnant Head'
1th September - 31th September 2005

This collection of works represents some of the highlights of the past two years of Kieran Moore's painting output. They were executed while he was completing an MA in Fine Art at the National College of Art and Design in Dublin.

'They are an attempt to describe a kind of naive sensuality. Our contemporary visual landscape is over-run with tawdry graphic sexual imagery. This pornification of culture is now also rampant within the highbrow Art world. This work is something of a riposte to such degradation and commodification. I am describing a sweaty, pungent Garden of Earthly delights, but it is a place which is also luminous and delicate. The works exhibit a kind of gauze-like eroticism. I am also interested in the various heretical Christian sects which appeared across Europe throughout the middle ages, who preached nudity and licentiousness as ways to gain a closer relationship with the almighty. In thisa period, piety and permissiveness were comfortable bedfellows in stark contrast to the gaping chasm which lies between today's equally extreme world's of gonzo, prurient flesh-mongering and the modern, prohibitve Christian right.

I am primarily inspired by the Flemish old masters like Hans Memling and Dieric Bouts, medieval folk art, Glam rock, old naturist magazines and vintage hair product advertisements'

ArdBia and Super8ireland are proud to present the first Galway 8mm festival. Super8 Size it celebrates the revival of the small gauge. 40 years after its introduction, Super 8 is still alive and the 8mm community is growing day after day.

Super8 is being used for art installations, short and feature films, documentaries, home movies, animation movies and music videos. Wether you are an 8mm fanatic or are just discovering the world of movie making, come and enjoy this free superfestival.

Bring your own film night: If you have old reels at home, come and show them on the first night of the festival (Wed 29th June) in ArdBia's Super8 lounge with several projection screens and a DJ.

The festival also features among other things a 50's picnic, an artists' dinner, retro DJ sets, installations, a Super8 shop, an exclusive film preview, a live gig by Mr Weasel.

Visit the festival's official website for more information

Brian Magee
20th May - 19th June 2005

Brian Magee is an artist and musician who lives and works in Dublin. He obtained a diploma in communications production from Colaiste Dhulaigh in 1999 and a BA hons photography degree from D.I.T Temple bar in 2001. Since then he has been working as a photography lecturer in Colaiste Dhulaigh. He has had photographic work exhibited in both Ireland and France and has appeared on the Newcomers 2000 Late Late Show Special.

This exhibition concerns the isolation of such random objects as those found in any servite shop or charity store – items alienated from their context, part of someone else’s story, someone else’s world, their meaning fractured.  He is interested in our relationships with objects and how they can spark our memories into action. In the instance of the couch series to observe them is to observe the tastes, socio-economic background and physical histories of not only the objects but also of their owners.  All photographs were shot on location in St. Vincent De Paul.  The absence of physical context within the photographs concentrates our attention on the objects before us and yet has the opposite effect of deflecting our attention from the object by creating a portrait through absence.