The Kerlin Gallery is pleased to announce a major exhibition of drawings by David Godbold from 14 January - 12 February 2005.

David Godbold has been making provocative image-text drawings throughout his career, and his new exhibition brings together nearly two hundred important, and often pivotal works, most of which have never previously been seen in Ireland. This collection represents the past fifteen years of this body of work and to mark the occasion a major new book will be published to accompany the show. The book contains over ninety full-colour reproductions, with essays by the American art historian and philosopher, David Carrier and Irish critic Caoimhín Mac Giolla Léith.

The majority of the drawings in this exhibition, focus on the developments since Godbold's P.S.1. residency in New York (1999-2000) at which time the artist started collecting an extremely diverse range of discarded papers such as shopping lists, personal notes, tickets and leaflets and overlaying on them drawings and text. This simple beginning has grown into an ever-developing practice, which takes the reductive elements of found materials, typed text and overlaid delicate ink drawings, and produces a potent mix of beauty, humour and a barbed philosophical commentary. David Carrier's essay describes Godbold's practice as 'madly inventive', an artist who comes across as though he has thoroughly digested Nietzsche, but through his caustic humour, retains the capacity to speak clearly to the broadest spectrum of audiences. Carrier sees Godbold as the perfect fusion of a great mass-artist, like those of the early comic books, and a master Italian draughtsman from the sixteenth century.

David Godbold has exhibited widely and has had solo shows in Ireland, Britain, Italy, France and Australia. He participated in the highly acclaimed 'Clockworks' - a PS1/MoMA International Studio Programme Exhibition, The Clocktower Gallery, New York and more recently in 'Reanimation' at the Kunstmuseum, Thun. He is represented in the collections of Trinity College, Dublin, the Irish Museum of Modern Art and in many private and corporate collections throughout Australia, Europe and the USA.

A fully illustrated publication for the David Godbold exhibition is available, with essays by David Carrier and Caoimhín Mac Giolla Léith.