40 t-shirts, 40 artists, no rules, lots of creativity - exhibition set for Cork town

What happens when you give 40 plain black t-shirts to 40 different artists, and ask them to create something from it, with no rules?

That’s exactly what we will find out at the forthcoming exhibition T Shirt, taking place at My Place community centre in Midleton on October 18.

The idea is the brainchild of My Place’s art curator, Gary MacSweeney.

“40 black T-shirts have been given to 40 Artists of different practices, disciplines and skills,” explains Gary. “There is no prompt and no agenda, this is art for art sake. Do whatever you want, be wild, be free, be yourself.”

Gary is an experienced artist and art curator, having spent 30 years working in the arts in Galway. He started out as a comedy performer alongside Tommy Tiernan, and has spent time working in hair and make-up design, event management, curating art exhibitions, and is an artist himself.

“I’m a portrait painter. I’m a curator as well,” says Gary. 

I just love creativity. It’s a huge part of my life.

He took up his role as art curator at My Place in Midleton three and a half years ago. When he arrived, the venue was hosting around three to five art exhibitions each year. Gary saw the potential to do more, and asked the manager of the centre if he could start promoting the space as an art venue.

“Over the last three and a half years, I’ve done nearly 35 solo exhibitions,” says Gary. “I’ve sold over 500 paintings for artists in Midleton throughout that time.”

A keen musician as well as an artist, the idea for his latest exhibition came to Gary when he was designing t-shirts for a rock song he had written with a friend.

“I just thought to myself, what if I got all the artists in Midleton that I’ve been working with and that I know, and handed them a t-shirt, and said, design it,” he says.

The project has been somewhat nostalgic for Gary.

“I grew up in the ’80s. I was a teenager, and we made our own t-shirts. That was the kind of the centrepiece of your clothes,” he explains.

The response he got from the artistic community of East Cork was beyond what he could have imagined.

“I got 20 t-shirts,” says Gary. “I thought, okay, 20 I could do. Then it became 25, then it became 30, then it became 35, and now it’s at 40.”

It will be the largest group art exhibition Midleton has ever hosted.

While some artists are sticking to ‘flat’ t-shirt designs, by creating art on the garment itself, others have gone outside the box with their interpretations by using other materials, sound and movement to create their projects.

“People are dipping them in caustic wax, they’ve made them into 3D sculptures,” says Gary.

The exhibition will include work from a wide range of artists and craftspeople.

“We have a lot of incredible crafters in town, and ceramicists, writers and playwrights,” explains Gary.

I asked them all, would they do it, and everybody said yes.

Among those contributing pieces to the exhibition are East Cork ceramicist Susan Herlihy, sound artist Danny McCarthy, playwright Brendan Griffin, and painter Niall McCarthy. The artists represent a large cross section of the community, with the youngest exhibitor aged 11 and the oldest aged 78.

“We’ve got LGBT artists in here, we have Indian artists, we have African artists,” says Gary. “I didn’t automatically go out to kind of find that kind of diversity. I just realised that’s what we have in Midleton.”

Given the vibrant creative scene in East Cork, Gary would love to see a new art centre for the town.

“Midleton and its hinterland has about 27,000 people, and yet we don’t have an art centre,” he says.

“We are searching for that art centre in Midleton, and My Place and the board of directors and the management, we’re currently exploring venues and funding streams to try and get an art centre.”

The exhibition will fall on the first anniversary of Midleton being flooded during Storm Babet, which Gary sees as an opportunity to reflect on how far the centre and local town have come in a year.

“This centre got flooded, it went under up to 22 inches of water,” says Gary. “It’s taken us a year now to pull the place back together, but we’re back in full capacity again.

“So it’s a poignant day. It’s kind of a kick in the in the face of adversity.”

The exhibition is on Friday, October 18, from 7-9pm. It’s free to attend, and there will be drinks, nibbles, and live music from local rock band Anti Citizen.

“They’re a young, kind of Slipknotty, heavy metal band,” says Gary. 

We have incredible artists in the town, but we want to move as well into engaging with the younger community for the future.

Overall, Gary’s message is one of togetherness and celebration: “Let’s do an exhibition. Let’s bring the community together. And yeah, rock and roll.”