On  Tuesday  night  last, September  22nd  2009  April  Joanna  Curtin’s  first  public  exhibition opened  at  Gallery  126,  North  Main  Street  Youghal.
By www.youghalonline.com Arts reporter/ Photo Thomas Bulman

April  has  recently  graduated  with  an  Honours  Degree  from  The  Crawford  College  of  Art  and  Design, Cork  where  she  spent  her  time  exploring  themes  of family, childhood  and  the  transience  of  memory.  Awarded  The  Ted  and  Mary  O’  Regan  Arts  Bursary  in  2007  and  the  Cork  Institute  of  Technology  Purchase  Prize  in  2009  when  one  of  her  pieces  was  purchased  by  The  Dublin  Office  of  Public  Works  her  work  has  gone  from  strength  to  strength  and  has  achieved  favourable  mention  in  The  Irish  Times  Arts  section.

April’s  current  exhibition  interrogates  the  function  of  photographs  and  the  impulse  to  immerse  oneself  in  the  family  photo  as  an  extract  from  her  personal  artist  statement  explains.

“I am interested in memory as a construct of imagination and a subjective creation of memorials.  By delving into the recollections of others  through  photographs, and projecting my own impressions onto them, I seek to create a new narrative to which I can relate and present an invitation to the viewer to investigate her/his own remembrances and their relationship to our communal memory.

Within these photographs, I address not only notions of memory, but of self.  My interest in creating artwork is to evoke one of the essential human dilemmas, the yearning for, but inability to, return to the past. Within art, there is the potential to create a space that evokes a loss of awareness where one can become completely submerged in the stillness of a moment. My use of old photographs fuels my search for altered states of consciousness and reality, where for a time the viewer and the canvas become one. My work is my narrative, my imaginative negotiation between and through the spaces of past and present, as my paintings become the connection between then and now, an embodiment of my own journey. Applying contemporary colours and ideas to the faded facades of yesterday invites the viewer to do the same, so to speak, and opens up these windows to the past, providing a space for a momentary escape from reality and the present.”

April

April’s  work  is  innovative  and  fresh  as  she  offers  a  different  take  on  the  “family  photo”. Walking  through  the  exhibition  is  like  taking  a  trip  down  memory  lane  albeit  with  a  new  pair  of  glasses!!!   April  would  like  to  thank  in  particular  Mr.  Eamon  O’  Brien,  and  everyone  who  came  to  the  opening  reception  last  Tuesday  and  made  it  such  a  success.  In  attendance  were  her  family, friends, art  lovers and  many  locals  all  of  whose  support  is  greatly  appreciated.  A  celebration  of  culture  and  heritage, April’s  exhibition  is  currently  on  show  at  Gallery  126  and  she  would  like  to  invite  anyone  even  a  little  curious  to  take  a  walk  inside  to another  place  and  time.

Click on image to see April’s exhibition at Gallery 126

4655 – artist  April  Joanna  Curtin
4656 – April and her sister Alicia
4657 – April and family, mother Joan, father Willie John, grandmother Johanna and sister Alicia
4690 – April and animator Vaughan Buckley
4692 – Willie John Curtin, April, Kieran Heffernan, Paul Roche and Alicia Curtin
4695 – Kieran Heffernan
4696 – Willie John Curtin and his sister  Rose  and her daughter Laura
4697 – Kieran Heffernan and Paul Roche, The Cyberoom

4698 – Kieran Heffernan and Paul Roche, The Cyberoom
4699 – April with guests
4701 – April and Eamon
4705 – Opening Speech