Geraldine O’Sullivan.
By Irish Echo Staff
The Irish Repertory Theatre is back at its home 132 West 22nd St., Manhattan, and Salon Éire 100 continues there with an art exhibition of Geraldine O’Sullivan’s lifescape collages entitled “16 Letters," beginning today and running through June 26.
The work is based on 16 letters selected from the public digital database called the 1916 Letters Project, in which there are 2,400 letters, written during the momentous events prior to, during and after the Easter Rising and during the First World War - between November 1915 and Spring 1917. The letters sent to, from and within Ireland give a sense of profound context to the extraordinary and ordinary historical events of this time. The lifescapes portray the personal and subjective written testimonies of the writers, within the wider context of contemporary events during this pivotal period in Irish history and transform the ordinary everyday banalities of life into multi-layered images.
O'Sullivan is an Irish artist living and working in West Cork. A graduate of Dublin's National College of Art & Design (with first-class honors), she has exhibited in the Royal Hibernian Academy and was named by Irish Tatler as one of Ireland's Women of Influence 2015.
She has had numerous solo exhibitions in Ireland and the UK. “16 Letters” is her first solo New York show. O'Sullivan's work features in public collections in Ireland, including Áras an Uachtaráin (the official residence of the president) and in numerous state and public buildings as well as in private collections worldwide. For more, go to her website: www.geraldineosullivan.com. For more on Salon Éire 100 go to http://www.saloneire100.com.
Admission to “16 Letters” is free, between 12 and 7 p.m. each day, except Mondays.
Mhac An tSaoi documentary
CualaNYC continues tomorrow with the American Irish Historical Society U.S. premiere of “Deargdhúil: Anatomy of Passion.” This new 60-minute documentary by award-winning Australian filmmaker Paula Kehoe explores the life, work and sensual poetic imagination of the poet Máire Mhac an tSaoi, who helped revolutionize Irish poetry by drawing on a native tradition to express a passionate sensibility and taboo emotions, at a time when women's voices were on the margins of literature and society.
Máire Mhac an tSaoi in 1956.
Born in 1922, her story is set against a backdrop of a tumultuous century in Irish history in which she and her family (her father was Seán MacEntee, her husband Conor Cruise O’Brien) were centrally involved. It is told from an intimate perspective through dramatic representations of a sequence of poems re-imagined and choreographed as short films intercut with rare footage and the poet’s own commentary on her life and work. The occasionally provocative treatment of her poems highlights the tension between the public persona of a powerful public figure and the exploration of female sexuality at the heart of her poetry. It features performance artist Maureen Fleming, Louis de Paor, Ailbhe Ní Ghearbhuigh, Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill and Olwen Fouéré.
On Saturday, the Long Island City Newgrange Festival will begin at 7 p.m. Guests are invited to join the New York Irish Center’s Dawn Chorus in song as part of Bealtaine, Ireland’s festival of aging and creativity and they about the culture of henges with astrophysicist Jackie Faherty, a Hubble Fellow at the Carnegie Institute of Washington in the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism, a research scientist in the department of Astrophysics at the American Museum of Natural History as well as co-founder of the research group Brown Dwarf New York City (BDNYC) and the 501c non-profit foundation Raising Awareness in Science Education for Women (RAISE-W).
Then follows an evening of Irish music the sun goes down over Manhattan during Manhattanhenge. Known throughout Ireland and North America, Donie Carroll possesses one of Ireland’s finest folk voices: a warm earthy tone and a stellar Irish folk repertoire. The special guests who will close the evening at Gantry State Park will be announced on www.cualanyc.com.
