Talbot Gallery & Studios are proud to present ‘Precognition’, a group exhibition from our ‘Most Promising Graduate Award’ shortlisted artists 2013.

These five artists excelled in their fields and were chosen by Talbot Gallery for their promise and potential. Helen MacMahon, Joe Scullion, John Conway, Marie Farrington and Laura Ni Fhlaibhin will take part in ‘Precognition’, showcasing these five talented individual’s practice one year on since their Degree Shows in June 2013.

We have been delighted to watch these shortlisted graduates continued success over the past year and to see all of them strive to make their mark in the art scene in Ireland. Between them, they have been shortlisted for ten awards, won eleven awards and completed five residencies in Ireland and internationally.

Talbot Gallery & Studios ran the ‘Most Promising Graduate Award’ for the fourth time in 2013. The competition is open to all Fine Art and Visual Art Practice graduating students from the Dublin Institute of Technology, the Dun Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design and Technology and the National College of Art and Design.

The Talbot Gallery & Studios Most Promising Graduate Award is presented to the visual art student who displays the most potential, innovation and flair in their graduate degree show. All five shortlisted artists have proven they are deserving of their place in 'Precognition'. The Talbot Gallery are delighted to present these recent graduates work as they continue to embark on their promising careers.

Helen MacMahon ’s practice is currently concerned with the phenomena of light, movement, perception and space, observing and revealing the artificial ecosystem that exists between the viewer and these intangible elements. Existing in a perpetual state of transformation, changes occurring in one facet have a perceptible impact on the others, revealing previously inconspicuous properties and characteristics.

As well as being shortlisted for the Talbot Gallery Most Promising Award, MacMahon was shortlisted for the Block T Studio Residency 2013 and was the recipient of the Ormond Studio Residency for a Recent Graduate 2013 and the Cill Rialiagh Residencey for a Fine Art Graduate 2013.

Laura Ni Fhlaibhin ’s practice is situated in the aftermath of a catastrophic impact or event, investigating the psychological and physical ruptures that occur at the site of trauma. The impossibility of return to a previous state of being, after impact, underpins my work. Ni Fhlaibhin is concerned with the effects of collapse on the individual and her practice explores the post-traumatic condition resulting from catastrophic impact. At the same time, she explores the aftermath site as one of potential transformation and recovery.

Since graduating, Ni Fhlaibhin has exhibited in shows in Pallas Project and Studios Monster Truck Gallery in 2013 and was part of Periodical Review 3 curated by Gavin Murphy. Travel and Training Award, 2013. Irish Arts Council. She is the recipient of the Firestation Studios Sculpture Award and Bursary 2013 and the Irish Arts Council Travel and Training Award, 2013.

Through the convergence of form and material, Marie Farrington ’s work negotiates a range of spatial and art historical concerns and is bound to transformative action. Investigating the limits and metaphorical potential of material, her practice seeks to traverse the space between form and function, her largely process-driven approach surveying how modes of making may influence objects and their operation within a network of physical and allegorical concerns. The work that she makes serves as a revisiting of existing systems, a reworking of the forms and materials we are readily exposed to. The oppositions presented ground the work in the physical, resulting in objects that are suspended between various identities. Marie’s practice operates simultaneously as subversion and a making explicit of material. Due to the work’s relationship with the viewer and the spaces that surround us dialectics develop that lend to the work a distinctive contingency and open up an enquiry into the nature of the real.

Farrington was awarded Best Thesis in Fine Art (Undergraduate) DIT, the Basic Space Graduate Award 2013, the Makers Award, and Arts Tap Journal 2013 and was shortlisted for the Block T Emerging Graduate Award 2013. Farrington also had a residency in the Irish Museum of Modern Art in association with Basic Space.

Selected exhibitions include A Subtle Matter, Catalyst Arts, Belfast, 2013, Process, Graduate Exhibition at Block T Dublin 2013 and Origins, Lismore Castle Arts. Curated by Eamon Maxwell. 2013 Residency, Irish Museum of Modern Art. In association with Basic Space.

Joe Scullion ’s work puts us in an uncertain place where architectural features and fade in and out of sight, merging with painterly motifs. As the structures within the paintings appear to loosen they give way to a more hectic and spontaneous application of paint. The real begins to verge on the abstract, resulting in ambiguous scenes that become more reminiscent of psychological places. Logic seems to disappear with the rigid formations, consequently the paintings are structured but chaotic, in transition but still, fact intermingled with fiction.

Scullion is the recipient of the RDS Taylor Art Award 2013, Block T Purchase Award and Commended in Visual Culture for his thesis. Joe was shortlisted Block T’s Emerging Graduate Award. Recent group shows include Process Block T, 2013, Origins, Lismore Castle Arts 2013 and RDS Student Art Awards and Travelling Exhibition 2013.

John Conway ’s visual art practice is based on observations, opportune interventions and manipulations of materials and environments. He has exhibited and performed in Iceland, the United States, Poland, Ireland and Romania. His work encompasses sculpture, installation, performance, video, animation, drawing and painting.

The current prominent feature in his work is the exploration and challenge of mobility and tension. These enquiries are informed by a spinal issue, which affects his day-to-day life. Continued enquiry into factors of flexibility and rigidity, has led him to explore relationships between stationary and dynamic objects, movement and stillness, and how these elements impart the phenomena of degeneration or preservation.

John Conway was nominated for the Student Of The Year Award 2013, shortlisted and received the Art Students League of New York's Scholarship of Artistic Merit in 2011. Conway is the recipient of the Irish Arts Council Travel and Training award, 2013.

Selected exhibitions and performances include Accumulative/Pre-emptive Penance, Galleria Platforma, Bucharest, 2013, SIM Arts Centre, Reykjavik, August 2013, The Famine Workhouse, Carrick-on-Shannon, Fulcrum, 2013, Shed, Poznan Gallery Weekend, Poznan, 2013 Loop, Transition, 33 Mill St. Dublin, 2013.