'Augmented Auguries', Claire Halpin's solo show launches at OCG on Thursday 8 September 2022

 Olivier Cornet Gallery is delighted to present

Augmented Auguries

A solo exhibition of new paintings by Claire Halpin.

8th September – 9th October 2022

Exhibition Opening by artist Joy Gerrard ARHA.

Thursday 8 September, 6:30pm.

Olivier Cornet Gallery is excited to present Claire Halpin's first exhibition at the gallery since her monumental Jigmap series of works was acquired and exhibited at IMMA in its museum wide exhibition The Narrow Gate of The Here and Now – Chapter Four: Protest and Conflict. This has significantly positioned Claire’s paintings in an international context of contemporary and historically acclaimed political artists looking at protest, conflict, contested histories and responding to the global issues of our times. It has also brought a wider audience nationally and internationally to her work and practice.

This timely exhibition – Augmented Auguries - brings together an ambitious body of Claire’s work developed over the last two years building on themes and concepts previously explored in her paintings. Responding to sites of conflict and contested histories internationally from the Pandemic, storming of the Capitol, to the war in Ukraine, now Claire turns her lens to national conflict and protest in Northern Ireland. The spectacle and theatrics of conflict and protest are documented and recorded through paint. The works attempt to navigate the complexity of the contemporary theatre of war and cultural wars as battlefields move to the battlespace of the online and livefeed of news, images and social media. All played out in the steady stream of content, real, fake and created by whom for whom and for what intent and consequences in recording future history.

The exhibition title – Augmented Auguries - links the livefeed of news and social media via satellite and drones to the ancient Roman practice of augury – the interpreting of omens from the observed behaviour of birds, and the sometimes fabricated auspices that could be used to pervert a political course of action.

"With the recent paintings I have attempted to respond in a more immediate way through a loosening of the handling of the paint, allowing a movement and blurring on the gessoed surface – a slight shift from the heavily worked complex compositions of the Jigmap Series. Attempting to create a painting of a particular event, incident, atrocity – contesting history and recording future history. All to the backdrop of the canon of art history, the complex compositions and multiple narratives of Early Renaissance and Byzantine painting."

The exhibition is accompanied by a text of conversations between art historian Dr Brenda Moore-McCann and Claire Halpin in her studio.

Please visit the Augmented Auguries page to find out more about the exhibition and the artist.