Art Gallery re-launched near The Pier

cork | arts and media | event notice Saturday August 16, 2008 08:21 by Deepmonk sarahwalker at eircom dot net +353 (0)27 70387

Sarah Walker’s renovated Gallery opens in Castletownbere, Co Cork on 23rd August ‘08

Sarah Walker, the renowned Irish Artist is re-launching her newly renovated Gallery in Castletownbere. The event, on 23rd August will be marked by a show which will feature a selection of Sarah’s own paintings plus work by recently graduated artists from Cork and Dublin and will be opened by the Mayor of County Cork Cllr Noel Harrington

Rona Nelligan

You are invited to the Late Summer Show 2008
to celebrate the newly renovated gallery

to be opened by the
Mayor of County Cork
Cllr Noel Harrington

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Art Gallery re-launched near The Pier

Castletownbere, Co Cork - 12.08.08

As Castletownbere basks in the limelight of playing host to Neil Jordan’s
‘Ondine’ film set, another event is taking place in the small fishing town later this month, parallel to the fantasy themes of the film, a real-life event also involving a fisherman and a love story …

…but an artist instead of a mermaid.

Sarah Walker, the renowned Beara Artist is re-launching her newly renovated Gallery in Castletownbere. The event, on 23rd August will be marked by a show which will feature a selection of Sarah’s own paintings plus work by recently graduated artists from Cork and Dublin.

Situated next to Castletownbere Pier and extending almost out over the ocean, the Sarah
Walker Gallery is an old stone building which was originally a carriage house. In later years it was used by local fishermen as a net mending shed. It’s latest incarnation is as a bright and airy Art Gallery.

Over the past two years Sarah has worked with a local firm headed by Swiss born Beara resident Mark Jeisy who carried out the conversion work. The Gallery now houses a studio and large exhibition space with a museum standard lighting system. The re-fit also included a new roof and under-floor heating.

Sarah spent her childhood summer holidays on the Beara Peninsula with her
family and fell in love with the scenery and the sea. After time spent studying and travelling, she married a Cork fisherman in 1995 and settled down near Castletownbere to paint. She first opened a Gallery in Castletownbere in a rented shop on the town’s Main Street. Five years ago Sarah was able to buy the old net mending building near to the fishing harbour.

Sarah has exhibited widely in Ireland with shows in the Halward Gallery, Dublin and The Fenton Gallery, Cork. Further afield she has shown in Galleries in Mexico City and Hiroshima. Visual influences from Sarah’s travels in Asia, The Himalayas, Central and South America and India have all informed her work.

The selection of work ranges from Darren Sullivan’s funky giant boxer shorts to Rona Nelligan’s stunning closeups of local doorways and walls, Sabina MacMahon’s subtlety moving images, Sarah Kearney’s delicate kitchen utensills in bronze and Edia Connole’s beautifully painted motorbike in Willow Pattern.

The influence, support and inspiration of Sarah’s parents; prominent Irish
Architect Robin Walker and the late Art Critic Dorothy Walker can be seen not
only in the sympathetic design of the building but also in the mastery evident
in Sarah’s painting.

You can also see Sarah’s work online at http://www.sarahwalker.ie

Call the Gallery on +353 (0)27 70387

Interview contact: Sarah Walker

Press photos available.

Sarah Walker Gallery, The Pier, Castletownbere, Beara, Co Cork,
Ireland