David Beattie | the distance between things | 16 October-17 November | Illuminations, Maynooth University
Assembled from a variety of everyday materials, David Beattie’s work attempts to provide a framework for assessing our daily surroundings. The interactions between object, image and sound can be seen as a search for a tangible present through the intermediary moments where physics, philosophy, technology and nature collide. The distance between things presents a series of new works that combine sculpture, image and sound alongside a selection of video work from 2006-2009. The term ‘infra-slim’ was originally conceived by Marcel Duchamp as a way of describing the in-between space, the minute and unperceivable interactions between materials, the passing of hidden energies from one form to another. As an enquiry into the unseen or invisible interactions of the physical, Beattie presents a collection of work that explores distance and measurement, an attempt to quantify the unknowns through form, playfully welcoming new connections between foreign things.
David Beattie lives and works in Dublin, Ireland. He has received a number of Arts Council bursaries, most recently 2015 and was awarded the Harpo Foundation Award in 2010. His work is in a number of public and private collections and most recently was a recipient of the Hennessy Art Fund for IMMA collection, 2016. Recent solo exhibitions include CCA Derry-Londonderry (2017), Temple Bar Gallery and Studios (2011); The Mattress Factory Art Museum, Pittsburgh and Mercer Union Centre for Contemporary Visual Art, Toronto, Canada (both 2010). Beattie has been included in numerous group exhibitions including Irish Museum of Modern Art (2017 + 2013), TULCA (2017), Rubicon Projects, Brussels (2013) The Model, Sligo and Whitebox, New York (2012); Galway Arts Centre (2011); Douglas Hyde Gallery, Dublin (2010); Mains d’Oeuvres, Paris, and in Quiet Revolution, Hayward Touring, UK (2009).
Colin Graham 