Exhibitions

LONG ISLAND MUSEUM - “Milestones” 11th Annual LIMarts Members Exhibition

On view November 21–December 22, 2024 in the LIM History Museum.

LONG ISLAND MUSEUM - “Perfect 10” 10th Annual LIMarts Members Exhibition

November 30 - 17 December, 2023

LONG ISLAND MUSEUM - “Everything Is Possible” 9th Annual LIMarts Members Exhibition

November 17 - December 18, 2022

MILLS POND GALLERY, Member Artists Showcase 2022

660 NEW YORK 25A SAINT JAMES, NY, 11780

New York Irish Center, “Place”, solo exhibition.

Thursday April 11th - 25th 2019

1040 Jackson Ave, Long Island City, NY 11101

Built by the British, Fort Dunree is located on dramatic setting of Lough Swilly on the Inishowen peninsula Co. Donegal has been an important defensive site down through history. During World War I it stood guard whilst Admiral Lord Jellicoe’s fleet anchored in Lough Swilly prior to engaging the German Navy at the Battle of Jutland. Control of the fort was transferred to the Irish Free State just before World War II. During World War II Irish forces were stationed at Fort Dunree to prevent the warring nations violating the country’s neutrality.

Today the main Fort is a museum and houses a display of military memorabilia and artifacts as well as a range of large guns from the 20th Century. It also contains the former living quarters of the soldiers; this is what I was interested in.

Walking around this army camp is like walking back in time, walking into a different world. It has a unique sense of place like no other. With each footstep you feel the history, former function, protection, war and the mechanical mark of the old Empire. Now in darkness, what’s left standing is something that has a sense of, in many ways a clash or war of being, at least in my mind.

An investigation of this military camp finds an abandoned, rusted, weather and time battered corrugated atmosphere, with a desolate overgrown haunt that still watches over the lough. Life here seems dead, in peace. It seems as if they had just walked away, or time took them like all things in nature. What remains is the shell, the essence of former life, a mark.

There is so much to explore here, so many questions left to wonder. There is a tension between peace and war, protection and power, a struggle between man and nature under the eyes of time. There is a comparison to life and death which I found compelling. The buildings once had life marched around them, daily routine, early mornings late nights, hardship, laughter, love and ultimately…. Purpose.

Now it is as if the life and soul of these buildings, much like the bodies that worked loved and lived within, has but blown to the wind. The flesh from the bone may be gone but the mark that remains is magical. To explore the decay is to see a new beauty, to reflect upon lives once lived, retracing the footsteps of former and the mark they have left on us and within us. It gives to us a place to escape our world but also remember it.

An escape to forget, to remember, being.

Hoboken Arts Online Gallery; New Works 2018

Garden Level Gallery, 315 3rd St, Jersey City, NJ.