Tamara Henderson: Seasons End: More Than Suitcases / The Artist’s Eye: Liliane Lijn

Commencing the celebrations of the Douglas Hyde Gallery’s 40th anniversary, we are delighted to announce the opening of solo exhibitions by artists Tamara Henderson (b. Sackville, NB) and Liliane Lijn (b. New York).

Tamara Henderson
Seasons End: More Than Suitcases

Through her writing, 16mm films, sculpture, paintings, and installations, Tamara Henderson transforms everyday objects into the otherworldly and fantastical. Seasons End: More Than Suitcases, her first solo exhibition in Ireland, gathers an ever-changing body of work centred on a cast of human-like figures dressed in colourful, embroidered robes; vessels of communication between states of conscious and unconscious.

Developed during a residency at Scotland’s Hospitalfield (2015), Seasons End was first presented as part of Glasgow International 2016, before travelling to REDCAT, Los Angeles. A performance took place as part of Serpentine Galleries’ Park Nights, and the work was most recently presented in Oakville Galleries, Ontario; all captured in the 16mm film Seasons End: Out of Body (2018). As the installation travels, the cast of characters transform, adapting to their environment, absorbing new materials and narratives along the way. From a photographer’s studio to a hospital bed and funeral parlour, ideas of illness, healing, death, and transformation carry across all iterations of Seasons End. This next phase of the project in the DHG brings together for the first time the 25 figures from Panting Healer and 25 from Out of Body. Six figures gather to create a functioning darkroom, capturing the passage of time, 24 frames in a second, 24 hours in a day, while a vehicle is upturned on a gallery wall to take on a journey of dizzying heights.

The concept of travel—as exile, odyssey or spiritual quest—is paramount. Not only has the project itself migrated, changing its name and identity as it shifts from place to place, but the narrative these figures weave is peripatetic. With a makeshift vehicle and bespoke passports, they appear poised to traverse borders, physical or spiritual, like spectral bodies making the ultimate transition from one world into another. Henderson’s voyagers weave together an intensely personal story of travel between countries and states of being, of material alchemy and transformation, of everyday objects and experiences, of death and (re)birth, of seeds reaped and sown, and of slipping between worlds, “out of body,” and beyond.

Costumes designed and produced with Aude Levère. Sound design by Dan Riley. With special thanks to the artist’s studio associates Aude Levère and Jake Tilbury, and to Nectar Efkarpidis for his continued support.

Produced by REDCAT and Glasgow International with support from Oakville Galleries, Serpentine Galleries and Rodeo, London.

The Artist’s Eye: Liliane Lijn

Acknowledging the crucial role artists play in influencing and shaping other artistic practices, “The Artist’s Eye” series asks those exhibiting in Gallery 1 to invite an artist of significant influence to present work in Gallery 2. In this second instalment, Liliane Lijn has been invited to present her work by Henderson.

Lijn is perhaps most renowned for her pioneering work in kinetic art. Since the 1960s, she has woven her interest in science into her practice. With industrial machinery and tools, and through studying the physics of energy and light, she began creating sculptures with technically accomplished interplays of technology and text.

In response to Henderson’s invitation, Lijn has selected a work from a recent stage in her career. Following a dream, Lijn began to interview her mother, who endured persecution as a result of the anti-Semitism and violence of Europe in the years leading up to WWII, and whose escape to America brought a painful loss of identity. Look a Doll! My Mother’s Story consists of interviews with her mother, cut with photomontage and archival footage. Compelled by the idea of film as memory held in light, Lijn uses the medium as a form of narrative sculpture through which she continues her exploration into feminine archetypes and the relationship between language and time.

The Douglas Hyde Gallery is jointly supported by the Arts Council, An Chomhairle Ealaíon, and Trinity College, Dublin.