Munster Express Online

Greyfriars Municipal Art Gallery, Greyfriars Street, Waterford is delighted to announce a major new exhibition “VASSAL/VESSEL” by Jacquelyn O’Keeffe. This intriguing exhibition covers both floors of Greyfriars Gallery and includes large scale drawings and a steel sculpture. Speaking of her work, the artist states:

“My sculpture piece and drawing are about the elements of our universe and the idea that we are subject to the elements, their forces, mysteries and outbursts.”

The ground floor – “VASSAL” – consists of a series of drawings in which the artist uses cold greys, metallics and silvers to send out an “eerie feeling of estrangement, disconnect and powerlessness.” The title – VASSAL – refers to the fact that “we are subject to our land and are never really owners of the land but are subservient to its actions, behaviour, elements and forces.”

The first floor – “Vessel” – features a large, mysterious, conical metal sculpture which can be thought of as both a ‘personal space’ and a capsule of unknown origin. A set of large drawings on this floor are criss-crossed with heavy black strokes resembling weathered terrains and continue the landscape theme of the ground floor works.

Jacquelyn O’Keeffe was born in Amsterdam, New York in 1977 and trained as an artist in the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art and the Sage College of Albany, New York. She now lives and works in Waterford.