There's a new gallery in Shandon

ARTIST Geoff Spiers always wanted to run his own gallery but his art never paid the bills.

So he worked in all sorts of 9-to-5 jobs including software, medical devices as well as management roles. Now, after 40 years of painting on the side, he is concentrating on art and has opened a gallery on Shandon Street where, as well as showing his own work, he has monthly exhibitions of mainly local artists lined up for the year.

The Laneway Gallery is appropriately named. It’s in a laneway off the north side street that used to be known as Twomey’s Cottages as there were three cottages there, built in the 1800s. They were knocked and for about the last 20 years, there was a second hand furniture shop there.

London-born Geoff, who lives in Cobh with his family, has been dropping his daughter, Sara, at the Firkin Crane for ballet classes for years.

While in the area, waiting for Sara to finish her class, he walked around and one day spotted the laneway premises for sale. He bought it in 2019, just before the pandemic. It’s all white walls inside with spotlights and some of his work in the studio area, including a depiction of David Bowie in his Thin White Duke persona, walking along the Berlin Wall.

There are also abstract paintings based on medical devices as well as impressive cartoon-like artwork by Sara. However, Sara doesn’t plan to become an artist as she says there’s no money in it.

Her father doesn’t seem to be too worried about making a profit. He is happy to break even and says the commission he charges artists is relatively low.

“I take the view that it’s better to sell off more of the paintings. If you load a huge commission onto a painting, you can make it unsellable.”

A self-taught artist, Geoff studied physiology, having failed to get into the Slade Art College in London.

“I wasn’t surprised not to get in. My portfolio wasn’t good enough in those days. If I had left it later to apply there, I probably would have got in.”

Geoff spent several years working in Glasgow. He moved to Cork when he met his wife, Mary Scannell.

“I think it’s a great city. I first heard about it when my dad was building an extension. There were two lads on the road building a wall. My father asked them to help him. They were from Cork. I used to sit with them as a kid at lunchtime. They’d be eating their sandwiches and they told me all about Cork so I had positive thoughts about it from the beginning.”

But Geoff says he isn’t convinced that the local authority is all that committed to the arts.

“Somebody said to me that Cork is a merchant city with a lot of trade and businesses which the city is good at.”

Not being part of the scene, he doesn’t know if there are many art collectors in the city.

“I’m kind of an outsider.”

However, Geoff’s presence on Shandon Street is a boon to local artists looking for somewhere to exhibit and sell their work. He put out a call in November and was contacted by about 70 artists, mostly Crawford graduates from Cork but also artists from around the country.

“I decided to put some artists together (for the March exhibition) because I felt they were exploring similar themes to do with the urban environment, loneliness and how our built environment impacts on how we feel.”

The artists include Cork-born Rachel Walsh. She makes striking mixed media collaged maps of Cork city which “explore the many layers of memory the lie beneath the surface of the buildings, structures and spaces that we pass by every day.”

Cork-based artist Colette Cronin’s work complements Rachel’s exhibits. Using hardedge technique and flat colours, her work “explores the exterior and interior spaces of today’s built environment, the spaces in which we live, which can often be unimaginative and characterless, perhaps contributing to our sense of anxiety.”

The other artist exhibiting is Emmet Brickley. He “weaves figures and environments together conveying metaphors for identity, solitude and place. The spatial layering of colour and the environmental abstraction is as relevant as the anonymous protagonists within the oil paintings.”

Speaking about the environment of Shandon Street, Geoff says places like this are full of history “and should be promoted more. I think it’s a shame that they’re going to turn the Butter Market (in Shandon) into an IT centre. I’d rather see something artistic there that would draw more people to the area.

“I know there was a crafts centre there at one stage. But just imagine if the Butter Market was turned into a market place with art in it. It would draw more people to Shandon. But the council needs to be behind it.”

For the April exhibition, two artists, Tiffani Love, originally from America, and Rachael Johnson, from Derry, will be exhibiting.

“They both do landscapes from different perspectives. Tiffani - who studied at the Burren College of Art in County Clare - does beautiful landscapes. Rachael does landscapes as well, from the mystical side of things.”

One of Geoff’s paintings depicts a Coptic cross hanging above a butcher’s shop in Ethiopia. He and his wife adopted Sara from the east African country. They have two other grown-up children.