Valerie Gleeson Development Bursary
Tomas Penc
The Valerie Gleeson Development Bursary was used in conjunction with other financial grants and support to fund an eight month long activities culminating with my first solo exhibition in the Triskel Arts Centre, Cork, between 11th October and 22nd December 2018. These grants included The Cork City Council Arts Office Individual Artist Bursary 2018, Arts Council of Ireland Travel and Training Award, Triskel Arts Centre project funding and non-monetary support from the National Sculpture Factory.
Funding from the Valerie Gleeson Development Bursary was used to provide for material and setup costs related to the solo exhibition in Triskel Arts Centre titled ENDUSER as outlined in my application, and enabled me to develop and promote it.
The exhibition was developed throughout the year during associated activities which helped to shape the resolved artwork, such as the summer residency program at Uillinn: West Cork Arts Centre in Skibbereen where I was invited to design an outdoor billboard artwork for the 2018 Skibbereen Arts Festival; and a group exhibition in the nearby Doswell Gallery titled Sweet Autos. The included artwork, although intended as a standalone show, has further informed and provided testing ground for the final exhibition content.
The ENDUSER exhibition revolved around the main interactive installation which was further supported with four audio visual projections and a sound sculpture, divided into two parts. Please see the photo documentation below for context. The exhibition was an ambitious installation project taking place in a venue that was larger and more challenging than any other I have worked in so far and included 3D graphics, holographic projections, sound and sculpture. The interactive installation took over and appropriated the whole body of the Triskel Christchurch for nearly three months.Throughout the exhibition, several professional opportunities arose, including an artist talk to secondary school students about the complexities of contemporary technology and its place in today’s society, as well as interest from Local Arts Officers and private businesses.
The successful completion of ENDUSER exhibition represents a crucial point in my professional artistic career during which I was challenged in terms of scale of the venue, duration of the exhibition and the ability to work with multiple stakeholders within the same organization, The Triskel Arts Centre, as well as multiple parties, such as the NSF, Cork City Arts Council and multiple roles in the process, from purely artistic to production and marketing related tasks.
The exhibition received a review in the Critique section of the January/February 2019 issue of the VAI News Sheet (attached) and a critical review from Art Writer and Cork based artist Daire O’Shea (UCC Art History Graduate).
This solo exhibition is a major addition to my portfolio which contributed and reinforced my professional track record. It has played major part in pursuing my latest professional opportunities, including a full scholarship funded MFA course in Spatial Studies at Alfred University in New York, USA for which I have been shortlisted and a Percent for Art Commission at St. Columbas BNS in Douglas, Cork which is due to be completed in October 2019.
I would like to take this opportunity to sincerely thank the Bursary cusodians for support that was much needed at the time to develop my practice and take it to a fully professional occupation.
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