Dorothy Cross
Dorothy Cross
Callum Innes
Ailbhe Ní Bhriain
Zhou Li
With support from
Ailbhe Ní Bhriain
Interval V, 2023
Jacquard tapestry, cotton, wool, silk, Lurex, edition 2 of 3 + 2AP
294.5 x 454 cm / 115.9 x 178.7 in
Dorothy Cross
Generations, 2022
hand-carved Statuario Marble
65 x 62.1 x 43.4 cm / 25.6 x 24.4 x 17.1 in
Dorothy Cross
Branch, 2017
cast bronze branch, three polished bronze eggs, antique wooden bench
20 x 203 x 15 cm / 7.9 x 79.9 x 5.9 in sculpture
52 x 183 x 21 cm / 20.5 x 72 x 8.3 in bench
Callum Innes
Untitled Lamp Black / Deep Purple Dioxazine, 2023
oil on linen
82 x 80 cm / 32.3 x 31.5 in
Ailbhe Ní Bhriain
Interval V, 2023
Jacquard tapestry, cotton, wool, silk, Lurex, edition 1 of 3 + 2AP
294.5 x 454 cm / 115.9 x 178.7 in
Zhou Li
The Peach Blossom Spring-Garden No. 21, 2023
mixed media on canvas
180 x 180 cm / 70.9 x 70.9 in
Zhou Li
Night-Landscape of nowhere: Water and dreams No.1, 2024
mixed media on canvas
260 x 190 cm / 102.4 x 74.8 in
about the artists
Dorothy Cross
b. 1956, Cork, Ireland.
In Generations, five feet stack on top of one another, a chain of ancestors and successors. They nestle within a large block of Statuario, the purest white marble, historically used for monumental sculptures. Positioning the intimate touch of human bodies within this substantial piece of stone, Cross prompts us to reflect on the compression of time inherent in marble as a material, the brevity of human time compared to geological time, and the continuum of life passed down through generations of family.
Branch transforms the fragile and impermanent materials of the natural world into enduring bronze sculptures. Three polished bronze eggs, each cast from a different species using ornithologists’ models, sit atop a cast bronze branch from an ancient ash tree. “When I lay [the eggs] along the branch, their fragility seemed exaggerated,” says the artist about making this work. “It brought to mind the perfection of the egg, as the most perfect sculpture, and their importance in nature.”
One of Ireland’s most celebrated artists since the 1980s, Cross has exhibited in museums around the world, including Tate, London; MoMA PS1; ACCA, Melbourne; the National Gallery of Ireland; the Irish Museum of Modern Art, and the Venice and Istanbul biennales. In 2024, she will present a solo show at Kerlin Gallery and participate in the Hayward Touring exhibition On Art and Motherhood, visiting museums across the UK. Cross is currently working on an ongoing project titled KINSHIP, a ritualised journey returning a mummified body from Ireland to Egypt.
Callum Innes
b. 1962, Edinburgh, Scotland
Over the past 35 years, Callum Innes has developed a completely individual approach to painting that explores all the myriad possibilities of the medium. By repeatedly applying and dissolving layers of pigment, rich in texture and colour, Innes exposes the fundamentals of the paint itself. Full of humanity and fallibility, his art strives for a balance between precision and imperfection, opacity and luminosity, contemplation and material presence.
Callum Innes has been the subject of solo exhibitions at De Pont Museum, Tilburg; Kunsthalle Bern; Neues Museum, Nürnberg; Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney; the ICA, London; the Scottish National Gallery, and the Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh; Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge; Modern Art Oxford; the Whitworth, Manchester; IMMA, Dublin, and Château La Coste, Provence. His work can be found in the collections of Albright-Knox, Buffalo; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin; Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Texas; Museé des Beaux-Arts, Lausanne; National Galleries of Australia, Canberra; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, CA; Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh; Solomon R Guggenheim Museum, New York and Tate Gallery, London.
Ailbhe Ní Bhriain
b. 1978 Clare, Ireland.
Ailbhe Ní Bhriain is an Irish artist working with film, computer-generated imagery, collage, tapestry, print and installation. Ní Bhriain’s Jacquard tapestry Interval V combines striking imagery of underground caves, architectural ruins, strange animals and archival portraits. Measuring almost 3 x 4.5 meters, this visually arresting work threads an imagined line between contemporary threats of extinction and ancient narratives of the underworld. The tapestry is from Ní Bhriain’s recent exhibition Interval Two (Dream Pool), titled after Shen Kuo's Dream Pool Essays. Written in the Song dynasty, the text includes what is likely the first published reference to climate change.
Ailbhe Ní Bhriain's work has been shown widely internationally, with exhibitions including Temple Bar Gallery, Dublin; Broad Museum, Michigan; Whitechapel Gallery, London; CCA, Glasgow; Hammer Museum, LA; Istanbul Modern, Turkey; Reina Sofia Museum, Madrid and the 16th Lyon Biennale. Recent exhibitions include Hollow Earth, curated by Hayward Gallery Touring, visiting Nottingham Contemporary and Glucksman Gallery, Cork; THIS RURAL, Lismore Castle Arts, Ireland and solo exhibitions at Domobaal Gallery, London and Kerlin Gallery, Dublin (all 2023). In 2024, Ní Bhriain will exhibit at Innsbruck International Biennial, Kunsthal Gent, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon and Lismore Castle Arts.
Zhou Li
The Peach Blossom Spring-Garden No. 21, 2023
mixed media on canvas
180 x 180 cm / 70.9 x 70.9 in
Zhou Li
b. 1969, Hunan, China.
Zhou Li’s sumptuous and undulating new lyrical painting The Peach Blossom Spring-Garden No. 21 connects the rhythms of nature with human experience and emotion. Using the colour pink to express hope, healing, and “the ideal realm”, the work draws upon traditions of landscape painting, fusing reinvigorating the genre with motifs from classical Chinese literature (in particular Tao Yuanming’s Peach Blossom Spring, from the Eastern Jin dynasty), and the artist’s pursuit of the sense of being.
Meanwhile, the Water and Dreams series focuses on the universal motif of water, drawing upon its rich cultural symbolism and complex representations throughout art history, religion and mythology. Informed by the I-Ching hexagrams Kan (representing rainwater or steam) and Dui (water of rivers, lakes and seas), as well as the 12th-century Southern Song Dynasty painter Ma Yuan, the paintings approach water as a phenomenon of which only the edges are visible. Focusing on its non-representable aspects, they offer water instead as a vehicle for introspection and reflection to explore daily communication and the quest for existential meaning. In the artist's words, ‘only when piercing the spiritual depth of water can we better understand ourselves’.
Zhou Li has been the subject of critically acclaimed museum shows at the Yuz Museum, Shanghai; the Hive Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing; and Guangdong Museum of Art, Guangzhou. Our presentation follows recent solo exhibitions Water and Light, Château La Coste, France; Tracing Peach Blossom Spring, Pingshan Art Museum, Shenzhen, China (2022–2023) and Rose of Light, Shenzhen Museum of Contemporary Art and Urban Planning (ongoing, 13 January – 13 March 2024). It also coincides with the launch of a new three-volume artist book published by Hatje Cantz and featuring texts in English, French and Chinese by writers Fiona He, He Xiao, Lu Mingjun, Sue Rainsford, Xu Sheng and the artist herself.
