Róisín White —These Dark Shapes

Preview: 5–8pm Thursday 2nd September 2021
Register a time for the preview here.
Exhibition continues: Friday 3rd September – Saturday 18th September
Gallery open: 12–6pm, Thursday–Saturday

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Pallas Projects are pleased to present These Dark Shapes by Róisín White, the 7th exhibition in the Artist-Initiated Projects 2020/21 programme.

These Dark Shapes is a totem to a feeling. These shapes grew in the body, they grew and took up space. They grew roots, roots that they used to cling to my bones, but also walk around on. Sometimes they would leave, sometimes they would sit inside my ribcage and draw all of my attention.
So I decided to build them, outside of myself.

“And what shall we make ourselves from today? A memory, a seedling, a word? What can we hold up to the light and find despair has not yet touched?” – The Crying Book, Heather Christle

These Dark Shapes is a study into the burden of carrying around a secret; the heavy feeling you might experience while struggling under the weight of grief or sadness. These shapes have been built as a means to dispel this feeling from the body, as means to separate oneself from an overwhelming , clenched-fist, sensation.

Through sculpture and photography, White invites the viewer to imagine the shape of their feelings, the things they carry around with them day after day. Does it have shape you recognise? Does it have a colour? Can we create a shape that the helps us lighten the load, lessen the burden. Can the act of creating the feeling outside of ourselves, help us to overcome it, cast it away, or live alongside it in the next room.

This work was originally conceived in late 2019, but has grown and changed shape throughout the events of 2020, and our ongoing lived experience of a global pandemic. In what began as a personal journey into understanding one’s own physical response to stress and sadness, has become a widely experienced and intensive body-scan. We are all constantly wondering and diagnosing every minute feeling in our bodies, questioning it’s validity, it’s authenticity, it’s root, or it’s motive.

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Biography:

Róisín White is a visual artist based in Dublin, working primarily with photography, in addition to sculpture and drawing. Róisín holds a BA(hons) in Photography from DIT, and certificates in Ceramics and Sculpture from NCAD. Róisín is also an arts facilitator for young people and children.

Róisín White’s work often draws from archival materials and seeks to create a dialogue with our forgotten histories through the use of found photography and ephemera. She has an interest in exploring lore and the fictional narrative that can be discovered in discarded imagery, previous understandings agitated, and new meanings drawn out. Roisin’s sculptural work brings her photographic work into the three-dimensional and builds on means of photographic reception.

White has exhibited her work in Ireland and across Europe, with her debut solo exhibition at The Library Project in August 2018. She was selected to represent PhotoIreland at Futures Photography platform, and was selected for the Parallel European Photography Platform in 2018/9.

Her project “Lay Her Down Upon Her Back” was selected for the third edition of New Irish Works in 2019 and will be showcased at the Museum of Contemporary Photography project during the PhotoIreland Festival in July 2019. White was selected to take part in residency programmes, How To Flatten A Mountain residency at Cow House Studios in 2017, In-Between Shores residency with Ardesia Projects and JEST Gallery in Italy in 2018, and was the artist in residence at The Darkroom in Dublin (2018/2019). White has received funding from the local and national Arts Council in Ireland. She was selected as the recipient of the Blow Photobook programme FUSE in March 2019. Recent exhibitions include, “The Light from Our Side Shines Differently” Parallel Review, Lisbon, Portugal; “Zeitgeist” at the Robert Capa Centre, Budapest, Hungary; “New Irish Works” at the Museum of Contemporary Photography, Dublin Castle, Dublin; and “Out of Sight, Picturing the Unseen” at Finnish Museum of Photography, Helsinki, Finland.

roisinwhite.com | @how_fascinating

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Artist-Initiated Projects at Pallas Projects/Studios is an open-submission, annual gallery programme of exhibitions taking place in the context of a gallery space with a dedicated tradition towards the professional development of artists in a peer-led, supportive environment. This unique programme of funded, artist-initiated projects selected via open call is highly accessible to artists, with a focus on early career, emerging artists and recent graduates. Projects are supplemented with artists’ talks, texts, workshops or performances, online events and gallery visits by colleges and local schools.

Pallas Projects/Studios Artist-Initiated Projects is funded by The Arts Council