What is the title of the exhibition?
Senga Sharkey – The title of the exhibition is “Curiosity, Courage, Collaboration” and to be honest, I came up with it in conjunction with ChatGPT. I had worked on several drafts for a press release and was getting pretty close to a finished version when the word “courage” came up. I thought that was important because in The Irish Palette we had to have courage right from the beginning.
We each had to have courage to join the online training course in the first place, back in 2021, because it was quite a commitment. It cost quite a lot of money, as well as being a commitment of time because the course lasted for 3 months. For me to take that leap took a lot of courage and being prepared to take a risk. So “courage” was the word which started everything.
The idea of “curiosity” also emerged for the title because we are all quite curious, always trying something different, always experimenting with our own work. That is also what we try to do with The Irish Palette. We are always wondering where we can go next, what we can do and how we can push the boundaries.
So along with “courage” and “curiosity”, the next word, “collaboration” is important as working together has allowed us to reach new audiences, far more than we could have reached individually.
And what is The Irish Palette?
Bridgeen Butler – The Irish Palette is a group of artists who live and work in Ireland. We met initially when we all did the same online international art course. During this 12 week course the Irish students recognised the value of having a more local network to support each other throughout the process. Hence a private Facebook group with 12 members was set up in 2021. Today we have 23 members coming from across Ireland, north and south.
After our first year together, we came up with the idea of putting on group exhibitions. There were lots of reasons to do this including the benefits of sharing the costs, the workload, and the risks associated with putting on an art show. It also offered an opportunity to display our work in places where we would not have otherwise been able to as an individual.
We have been together now for 6 years and have a committed group of artists who are growing a reputation for delivering professional, exciting and well received art exhibitions.
See more information about The Irish Palette at the links below
