Solo exhibition due to open at the Studio 12 Gallery

A solo exhibition by Joseph Heffernan titled A Thousand Years will be held between Thursday, August 17 and Tuesday, August 22 at the Studio 12 Gallery.

The opening of the solo exhibition will be followed by a talk between the artist and the curator Aideen Quirke on Saturday, August 19 from 1pm to 2pm.

Joseph Heffernan's exhibition A Thousand Years expands his painting practice, building upon his existing pre-occupation with the intertwined nature of memory and fantasy.

The work encompasses the entirety of the gallery space, involving three-dimensional elements in a range of materials such as wood, plaster, silk flowers, household paint and textiles, collected objects and organic matter to expand the visual environment of the paintings.

A Thousand Years can be viewed as a mapping of interior mental spaces, with the artist acting to reconcile those spaces with the real exterior world, allowing for a sensitive and inquisitive exploration of the materials and methods used.

Emphasis is placed on the idea of the found object and its ability to create speculative narratives. Throughout A Thousand Years, real-life objects collected by the artist are appropriated and anthropomorphised within the world of the work, giving them agency and meaning beyond their original purpose. In essence, the fetishized nature of the objects and images function as allegories of memory.

The resulting fantasias are intended as spaces for reflection with a plurality of interpretations where the viewer is an active producer of these interpretations.