Blaine O’Donnell is certainly a prolific artist. Working mainly in the medium of sculpture, he has recently exhibited in Argillan Gallery, Balbriggan, and The Complex, Dublin. Along with numerous accolades, he is the recipient of the Paul Robinson Studio Award with Temple Bar Gallery + Studios (2025), and of course, the EMERGENCE Visual Art Award 2024, the award period with which this exhibition, thoughtfully titled Idir, culminates.
Running until 25th July, this show, curated beautifully by Catherine Bowe, is a considered collection of sculptural and mixed media pieces drawing upon geological sites in County Wexford and the architecture of the Wexford Arts Centre building. Accompanied by an elegant and introspective written piece by Tanad Aaron, O’Donnell’s body of work is an homage to the dexterity of material. Careful and specific use of a range of Wexford sourced stones (including basalt and limestone dust), textures (including beeswax and eggshells), and surfaces (including wood and computer monitors) render an exploration into the connections between these materials, the places they come from and what they are used for. There is a strong sense of rawness, a measured breakdown of object and space – familiarity is presented to us in an entirely new light.
Visually, the pieces are curated to have a quiet, clean, almost organic state. Mentally however, the show is a labyrinth of intricate connectors between the object, human and place. On first encounter, the viewer feels like they have a lot to figure out before they can ‘fully understand’ the work. Yet, as is the case with most successful exhibitions, the purpose of Idir is not for the viewer to deduct exactly what the artist means to say. In general, we have a habit of trying to translate art into spoken language as a kind of quick fix to understanding it. In the case of Idir, it is a disservice to the work to attempt to decode it. In a similar essence to its Irish title, is not meant to be directly translated from one language to another. In fact, it is important that we allow the sculptural pieces to speak for themselves, in their own tongue.
So, take an afternoon to go to Wexford Arts Centre, move around O’Donnell’s work – let it consume you for the time you are visiting. It is a quiet web of geological networks and materials. Don’t seek to translate it. Allow yourself to have the pleasure of catching the artistic meaning of it, rather than the linguistic.
Polly Maher
Polly Maher is an artist and arts writer based in Wexford.
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Very insightful and well written