Casual Persuasion, 2022, 20.1 x 23.1 x 1.9cm

Fathomless Arms is an exhibition of paintings by ARC researcher Sorcha McNamara. The title is derived from a line in Frank O’Hara’s ‘To The Harbormaster’, a poem that communicates a certain tone caught between self-assurance and uncertainty. The exhibition itself reflects a somewhat interim moment in the artist’s career, as she furthers her research on the inherent thresholds that exist within her process.

Parcels, 2021-23, mixed media site installation, dimensions variable

McNamara employs found, reclaimed, and repurposed material to construct whole painterly objects that, although largely wall-based, sit somewhere between the two and three-dimensional. The works are containers of fragments, both as physical material and as painted gestures, floating in a space of suggestion, allusion and ambiguity.

Fathomless Arms installation view, Ballina Arts Centre

The installation of the work is as much a part of the act of making as the pieces themselves, arranged in a specific response to the characteristics of the gallery’s unique concourse space: drawing attention towards its shape, its architecture, and how and where the light falls at certain times of the day.

Fathomless Arms continues at Ballina Arts Centre, Co. Mayo until Saturday 29 April 2023. The gallery is open Tuesday to Saturday 10am-6pm.

Fathomless Arms installation view, Ballina Arts Centre