Sneak peak ahead of our Culture Night exhib!

 We started to hang the work for our DERELICT exhib tonight.

Join us in the Town Band Hall, Dunlo Hill, Ballinasloe Friday 12pm til late. Saturday 1pm to 6pm. Opening: 7.30pm Fri. 22nd for Culture Night!

HANGING DAY - 8 - CULTURE NIGHT EXHIB

Artwork by Grellan Ganly

Here's some sneak preview pics of the work for EIGHT, the Group 8 2022 Culture Night exhib. We've been hanging today and we've a treat in store for all of you tomorrow.

Exhib times:

11am to 6pm Friday 23rd September - Culture Night

7pm Friday 23rd September - Culture Night - opening event with music, readings, and refreshments

11am to 6pm Saturday 24th September

Fiona Ormsby

Don helps Lily Kelly

Lily helps Fiona Moore (Group 8's newest member)

Grellan Ganly surveys some of his work

Don and Fiona M

Fiona O hard at work

Joyce Little, hanging a web

Bowls by Tommy Campbell, being inspected by Finbar McLoughlin

Culture Night is brought to you by the Arts Council in partnership with Galway County Council.

EIGHT - CULTURE NIGHT EXHIB OPENING - Ballinasloe

8 - image by Nuala O'Connor

For its twelfth outing, Ballinasloe-based artist collective Group 8 will hold the opening of its annual exhibition, EIGHT, on Culture Night, Friday the 23^rd September, at 7pm, in Artisan Alley at the Town Hall Theatre, Ballinasloe. The exhibition will run from 11am until late Friday 23^rd, and 11am to 6pm Saturday 24^th, and will feature writing, paintings, wood turning, textiles, photography, ceramics, mixed media, and sculpture.

Opening will be by Cllr Dr Evelyn Parsons.

EIGHT is the result of collaborative work the members of Group 8 undertook, taking inspiration from the figure 8 itself, its symbolism and meaning; from the idea of the number eight as representing infinity; and/or from working within the parameters of producing eight pieces of work. As always, each artist or writer was free to interpret the theme in whatever way they chose.

Group 8, founded in 2009, and now expanded from its original cohort of eight members, is comprised of ten visual artists and two writers. They are: Joyce Little – visual and multimedia artist; Tommy Campbell – sculptor and woodturner; Lily Kelly – visual artist; Grellan Ganly – visual artist; Úna Spain – visual artist; Nuala O’Connor – writer; Zara Little-Campbell – writer; John Soden – painter; Walter Coughlan – ceramicist; and Fiona Ormsby – textile designer. The group recently welcomed a brand new member, painter Fiona Moore.

Group 8 is a non-profit, professional arts group who came together in Ballinasloe to foster awareness, imagination and co-operative learning between the artist and the community. The group hosts exhibitions, literary events, artist talks, readings, workshops, and book launches.

All are welcome to the opening and to visit the exhib across the two days. Free admission. Refreshments will be served on Culture Night.

Culture Night is brought to you by the Arts Council in partnership with Galway County Council.

ART & WORDS - Author Nessa O’Mahony to Read

Dublin-based writer Nessa O’Mahony is the next guest in artist collective Group 8’s Art & Words series of talks in Ballinasloe. She will appear at Gullane’s Hotel, Ballinasloe, on International Women’s Day, Friday March 8^th at 7pm. Nessa will give a reading from her début crime novel The Branchman and she will be interviewed by Group 8 member, Nuala O’Connor. Admission is free. Refreshments will be served.

Nessa’s novel The Branchman was published in late 2018 by Arlen House. Set in Ballinasloe in 1925, it features Detective Michael Mackey, ex-British Army and Civil War veteran and one of the first members of the Free State’s new elite Special Branch. Mackey is assigned to the Garda Barracks in Ballinasloe and uncovers a plot by subversives to disrupt the peace. 

The novel is inspired by the real-life adventures of Nessa’s grandfather, Michael McCann, who was a member of the original Special Branch and was stationed as a Garda in Ballinasloe from 1929 to 1945.  Donal Ryan has described the novel as ‘a taut and absorbing thriller’ while writing in the Irish Times, Declan Burke said that ‘most fascinating, perhaps, is O’Mahony’s evocation of the wider political backdrop, that fragile, imperfect peace that took hold in the wake of the War of Independence and the Civil War.’

HANGING DAY!

Some sneak preview pics of our day of hanging the Majesty in the Minute exhibition. Please note the opening is now at 6pm, Friday the 22nd, in the Church Gallery, Ballinasloe Library. The colour blue runs through the work and we hadn't planned it.

Joyce Little adjusting a piece

Juno McLoughlin admiring a Lily Kelly piece

Close up of a Joyce Little piece

Cover of Nuala O'Connor's prose and photo book 'Angel of the Sea'

A Grellan Ganly ceramic

John Soden doing his fave job: putting on strings :) 

Lily Kelly, hanging work

John Soden's paintings

Grellan Ganly's ceramics and a painting

Margaret Hickey to Read at new Art & Words Series

Author Margaret Hickey

Portumna-based writer Margaret Hickey is the first guest at artist collective Group 8’s new Art & Words series of talks in Ballinasloe. She will appear at Tosnú Art & Craft Gallery’s studio in Brackernagh, Ballinasloe, on Friday November 27^th at 7.30pm. Admission is free. Tosnú will be open on the night, selling hand-crafted Christmas gifts and cards. Beautiful soaps, candles, cushions, knitwear, wood-turned boxes, children's wall art, textiles, clothing, books etc. Refreshments will be served.

Before Margaret Hickey moved to Ireland fifteen years, she worked as editor of a literary travel magazine and as a freelance writer in London. Prior to that she taught at a school for delinquent boys in Edinburgh and at the university in Paris. In 2001 Kyle Cathie, her UK publisher, brought out Irish Days, a collection of oral histories narrated by older people from different walks of life in Ireland.

Margaret writes short fiction and poetry, and mentors a creative writing group. Her current project, a social history of Ireland seen through the prism of food and drink, is near completion. In addition, she is Vice-director of Shorelines Arts festival in Portumna.

Group 8 is delighted to welcome a writer of Margaret Hickey’s calibre as our inaugural guest speaker. We promise a magical night of words, candlelight, quality crafts, tea, cake and lively discussion. Everyone is welcome!

THE EMIGRANTS - ERSKINE NICOL

Erskine Nicol’s beautiful painting ‘The Emigrants’, which belongs to London’s Tate Gallery, fits beautifully with our theme, The Group 8 Gathering.

The painting shows a red-shawled woman at Ballinasloe train station on her way, with others, to Galway to board boats to America.

Our exhibition launches on Friday the 15th march, 7pm, at Hayden's Hotel. Wine, food, readings, music, and beautiful art. All welcome!

The Emigrants - Erskine Nicol - image: Tate website

 

MADE IN BALLINASLOE - exhibition

Group 8 is delighted to announce the opening of its 3rd annual exhibition at Hayden's Hotel, Ballinasloe, on Saturday 10th March at 7pm. All welcome!

The exhibition runs from the 10^th to 18^th March 2012, including Saint Patrick's Day.

Admission free and all are welcome.

Made in Ballinasloe

Shoes are no longer made in Ballinasloe and neither are pens or circuit boards. Large scale industry does not exist in our town. So what is made in Ballinasloe? Babies are made here. Art is made here. Boxers are made here and soccer players. Swimmers, dancers and musicians are made here. Cakes, actors, friendships and marriages are made here. Memories are made in Ballinasloe.

Our 2012 exhibition, Made in Ballinasloe, is the result of collaborative work we undertook, responding to all the things that are made in Ballinasloe. We welcome you to enjoy paintings, books, sculpture, photography, textiles, videos and writing that have been made here in Ballinasloe.