On Wednesday October 8th, Presentation Secondary School, Listowel saw the official launch some beautiful Artwork created by a number of Art & History students in St. John’sTtheatre. The work on display was created through a series of workshops with Natalie Deegan from Artlab Tralee. Natalie guided the Presentation students through two workshops to create the plaster casts using clay moulds. To begin this process, students looked at some of the remarkable plaster work completed by local plasterer and builder Pat McAuliffe that has been conserved beautifully throughout the town of Listowel. In particular ‘The Maid of Erin’, which is a gem of Gaelic revival. The students involved in this exhibit, both Senior and Junior Art & History students with the cooperation and guidance of Ms McAuliffe and Ms O Riordan highlight the endless possibilities of cross curricular links between Art & History.
This opportunity was kindly funded by Creative Ireland in collaboration with Architecture Kerry and Kerry County Council Arts. We look forward to engaging in further opportunities in the future.
Katherina Broderick, Principal of Presentation Secondary school remarked that: “This was a most worthwhile project, the benefits of it will be remembered by the students involved for a long time to come. What an honour it is to have our students’ work on exhibit in St John’s Theatre. Thank you to our art teacher, Ms O’Riordan and our history teacher, Ms McAuliffe in conjunction with Kerry Archaeological Society and Natalie Deegan from Artlab Tralee, for providing this valuable opportunity to the students”.
Pat McAuliffe whose career was rather contemporary to the Arts and Craft movement and included much Celtic style imagery in his work has been a great source of inspiration for us. Pat included an eclectic mix of Art Nouveau, Byzantine, Celtic and freestyle motifs throughout his work. Pat, like ourselves, created much of his work offsite and by all accounts seemed to enjoy the performative side of things as he often unveiled his work from behind a curtain.
Ms O’Riordan said: “We are delighted to have this work on display in the centre of Listowel town so close to many of Pat’s creations as we too enjoyed unveiling the students plaster casts during the launch with Tony Bergin (President of Kerry Archaeological & Historical Society), Victoria McCarthy (Kerry Co Council), Natalie Deegan (Artist), Kaya Flynn (Radio Kerry) and other Art students and parents. We are delighted to now share our work with the public.
Through creating these works we considered Pat’s style of work, what it means to be from Listowel and the various Celtic style motifs we so often see around us. We hope you enjoy these artworks and that the next time you walk around Listowel you stop and take a moment to enjoy the splendour of the plasterwork by Pat and his contemporaries.”
“We would like to give a special thanks to Architecture Kerry, Kerry County Council Arts, Creative Ireland and of course Mr. Tony Bergin the President of the Archaeological & Historical Society for launching this exhibition, which is available to view by the public for free until mid – November please make sure to tag us with your favourite piece on social media @pres_listowel, we hope you enjoy viewing it as much as we enjoyed creating these pieces.”
We will also be featured by Kaya on Travels Through a Kingdom which airs on Sundays 6:10-7pm the date is yet to be confirmed.
