‘Art and the Experience’ , his first exhibition in three years A show of two parts: painted photos and a tent installation Bank of Ireland Arts Centre, Foster Place, (off Dame Street)
Monday 14 November 2005 6.30pm - 9pm
The show will be opened by Geraldine Kennedy Editor of the Irish Times
John Roch Simons’ latest exhibition ‘Art and the Experience’ opens in the Bank of Ireland Arts Centre on Monday 14 November.
The show, which runs until 3 December, consists of 20 mixed-media pieces (acrylic on photographs, 889mm x 737mm) and a tent
installation a
medium that creates an intimate viewing space within the wider exhibition area.
Roch Simons, a self-taught artist born in Dublin (1964), has worked as a portrait artist with subjects including The Edge from U2, actor Sean McGinley, Shane MacGowan of the Pogues and Mr Justice Dermot Kinlen.
In 1999, Roch Simons was sponsored by Richard Branson for his ‘Study of New Yorkers at the end of the 20 th Century’. He is currently working on pieces for an exhibition in New York in 2006. He has directed music videos for Siobhan MacGowan and The Hothouse Flowers.
Roch Simons’ works are featured in a number of private collections internationally; Bank of Ireland has also purchased two of his major works (Innocence and Baggot Street 2003) for its corporate art collection.
Roch Simons’ latest exhibition is seeking to explore the art experience, and asks ‘How should we experience art?’
The exhibition comprises two main elements: Roch Simons’ photo paintings and a tent installation which contains his personal insights into aspects of the art experience.
The primary theme is brought together in the tent installation (200cm X 120 cm) entitled ‘Art and the Experience Unfinished’.
This installation features a large self-portrait on the floor of the tent and stitched photographs with handwritten comments by the
artist on the walls. Issues raised within the installation include voyeurism, wonder, reviews, the muse, high art, low art, white cubes
and admittance/exclusion.
The show has many different levels the initial sensuality of the images; the use of paint on photography; the artist’s personal comments alongside his images.
Primarily, I want this show to stimulate the audience both visually and mentally, says Roch Simons. I would like this exhibition to reach and provoke those people who don’t normally frequent art galleries.
People may reference it to Tracey Emin’s controversial ‘Sensations Tent’. I think her use of a tent as a medium was superb, inspirational. Limited spaces can lead to great creativity we in Ireland have experienced this with the beehive huts. I chose this medium to express my thoughts in relation to the experiencing of ‘art’ but I didn’t want to impact on the experience of the main works, which celebrate the audience.
John Roch Simons is married to barrister Catherine White. The couple live with their three daughters aged seven, four and one in Donnybrook, Dublin.
For further information on the John Roch Simons see: www.johnrochsimons.com
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