IN RESIDENCE: David Eisenlord American Photographer

David J. Eisenlord is in Residence this month at Sirius Arts Centre

"Growing up taking family camping vacations to the shores of Lake Michigan and Huron, and later as an engineering student in Michigan's Keweenaw Peninsula, the power and beauty of the Great Lakes made a profound impression on me. The Great Lakes are my Big Sky country, a place for solitude and contemplation of ones smallness. I'm drawn in particular to the landscapes of the northern shore of Lake Superior and similar areas such Iceland and the coast of Maine. " David Eisenlord

American Photographer, David J. Eisenlord is in residence at Sirius Arts Centre until the end of February. During his time here David hopes to create photographs of the landscape of Cork County . Based in Minnesota, David (known as Ike) has exhibited his stunning platinum palladium prints throughout America, his work in the collections of the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, Texas and private organisations.

During his stay here Ike will give workshops on Platinum Palladium printing to students at Cork Institute of Technology. You can learn more about this interesting antique process on his website at www.davideisenlord.com

We welcome Ike and his wife to Cobh on this his first trip to Ireland, and hope to exhibit the works that result from his residency at a future date in the Sirius Arts Centre.

Sirius Arts Centre opening receiption for Open House 2 Saturday 31 January 2pm

OPEN HOUSE 2
A unique group exhibition
featuring artists living and working in Cork City and County

Opening Saturday 31 January 2pm – all welcome

Running until 1 March 2009

Gallery Hours: Wednesday – Friday 11am – 5pm/Saturday & Sunday 2pm – 5pm/Monday & Tuesday Closed

Sirius Arts Centre presents for the 2nd year "Open House" celebrating a wide range of artists who live and work in the Cork Area. We began Open House last year based on a presentation made in Łodz, Poland of the Homeless Gallery (Galeria Bezdomna http://www.galeriabezdomna.art.pl/), which was a spontaneously created photographic exhibition begun in 2002. The idea of the Homeless Gallery is to make an exhibition space available to everyone.

The initial Homeless Gallery was organised in the Former Merchants Guild House in Warszawa in May 2002, followed by the second Homeless Gallery in the Gdansk shipyards. Since then there have been 55 Homeless Galleries successfully organised in a wide range of areas such as: Wrocław, Kielce and Kraków in Poland, as well as in South America, Australia and Algeria.

Unlike these Homeless Galleries – Sirius Arts Centre doesn’t have the vastness of space for a completely free for all exhibition, so we had to change the format a bit to suit our organization. In December we made a public call out to artists living and working in the Cork Area. We opened the submissions to any 2D visual art piece that was ready to hang on the wall and not bigger than 75cm squared. Artists had the opportunity to pre-book their space in the exhibition – Reservations had to be taken due to our limited space, allowing only those artists who took the time to arrange an appointment for dropping off their work to participate.

The response has been astounding! The slots were completely filled in a matter of a few weeks. This illustrates to us the huge need for more exhibition space in the Cork region. The presentation of this exhibition is very casual, our Open House exhibitions are not “formal” in the traditional sense of the word. Instead, it is evidence of the huge energy, variety and talents existing in the area and the creativity that abounds in our community.

For more information contact Sirius Arts Centre at: 021 481 3790 or via email at: cobharts@iol.ie