Paintings — Ciara Roche

honeymoon, Butler Gallery, Kilkenny - 12 October - 1 December 2024

There’s no fear of crowds or any form of overcrowding in these works, not a citizen to be seen – and yet, despite this, it sometimes feels all too peopled, that people are expected or coming or gone, that preparations have been made and perhaps abandoned and all that remains is what’s left behind, the property, its rooms, the furnishings. The paintings’ elegance is in the omissions and absences, and the effect is both disturbing and mysterious. The works exhibited in honeymoon are not paintings to soothe or prettify. In The Landing, one feels the staircase to be hazardously steep. On the descent, one feels warned to use the bannister, to hold on. In other paintings, despite the upholstery, the softnesses, (the curtains, the bedlinen, the tablecloths, the wine, the yellow lamplight and yellow, lighted candles), whose comforts could dominate, one is not so much comforted as taken over by Roche’s unobtrusive obsession with glass, with what is shiny, clean and breakable. She presents herself against windows, mirrors, a windscreen. Even the sunset over the sea feels like it could be shattered or broken and won’t last. No sunset does. And there is money in this work, a sense for what is expensive -– but what is the money for and what good is it? – the paintings seem to ask. -

Claire Keegan

Exerpt from commissioned text by Claire Keegan, read full text here

Images courtesy of the Ros Kavanagh, Butler Gallery & the artist

nightcall, Ashford Gallery, Royal Hibernian Academy, 18 November - 18 December 2022

The paintings in nightcall begin in the evening then move to dusk, then to night. These are not comfortable paintings; rather they are uneasy domestic scenes, scenes from hotel bedrooms, public bathrooms, car parks, off-licences and chippers: places that could be anywhere or nowhere, places we pass through on our way somewhere else, somewhere better.

Nightcall is a song by French musician and producer Kavinsky about a boy who has risen from the dead and invites the girl he loves to join him for a ride in his car so he can tell her how he feels. We are the invited girl, we sense the uneasiness, even the danger but we are drawn in by the seductively painted surfaces. We get a glimpse into a world that is recognisable, but remains out of reach, strange and uncanny.

House Party & Still 5 - installation view

Images courtesy of the artist and Kate Bowe O’Brien

of late… - mother’s tankstation, May - July 2021

I can’t but help… ask a similar question of Ciara Roche’s paintings, about their almost-next-to-nothing status, as inescapably therein lays (lies – I smell mendacity) similar obsessive detailing. Paintings, akin to Joyce/Higgins’ written subjects, which test the right to be subject worthy. Again, they are distant, removed, cool, objective, sometimes funny, but from her multiplicitous, tiny oil ‘sketches’ [?], many on paper, visual lists beyond simple studies, exercises, we could clearly select and order ‘stuff’. Make choices: SMEG Kettles, silver, black, primary and/or three shades of pastel toasters. Which, if any, do we need or want? Choose the perfect Dyson vacuum cleaner for a particular task. Never loses suction… Complete an online-purchasing-decisions from the ‘SEXY’ range of Victoria Secrets. If we were, when, allowed, to visit the ‘VS’ store in person, from Roche’s paintings we would even know the ‘correct’ COVID-restrictions-social-distancing-route, around the shop, as indicated by taped yellow arrows adhered to the floor. Actually, I sense that specifically it’s not a dedicated store, but like many of Roche’s scenarios, an artifice; a store within a store, a concession, within the over-arch of a greater department store. The exit is visible, but, like the notorious Father Ted (S02EP11) episode where a group of Catholic priests are inexplicably (?) trapped, in a lingerie department, there’s no physical escape. Artistically redirected down another path by Roche, we might choose to redecorate the house, guided by a selection of perfectly co-ordinated, IKEA selected, room offerings – this goes with that. No need to actually go, Home Delivery available or Click-and Collect. Even replant the herbaceous borders in the garden, from (assumingly) botanically correct paintings of garden centres. I trust them, they are after-all, offered complete with outdoor seating and paving options…

David Godbold

Exerpt from of late… exhibition text by David Godbold read full text here

Ikea study 4 - of late... installation view

VS study 4, VS study 3, VS study 1 - of late... installation view

Summer Garden Cafe & Winter Garden Centres 1 - 4, of late... installation view

Images courtasey of the artist & mother’s tankstation

Selected two - person & group exhibitions

Installation view - GENERATION2022, Butler Gallery, Kilkenny, image courtesy of Ros Kavanagh and the Butler Gallery.

TECHNOLOGY & Emma Roche's Just a Cry for Help - OCHRE, Wexford Arts Centre, Wexford, June - August 2021

Palace Hotel, Mortlake Ocean Food, Breakfast Cafe - HOME, The Glucksman, Cork - April - November 2021 image - Jed Niezgoda

Study no 5 - The Sky is Blue, VISUAL, Carlow, June - August 2020 image - Ros Kavanagh