Els Dietvorst.
‘Adrift’ exhibition at Uillinn – West Cork Arts Centre, Skibbereen, Ireland, 2024 / Photograph Jed Niezgoda – jedniezgoda.com
An exhibition which explores the limits of human existence and how we relate to nature will go on display in both Wexford County Hall and the Arts Centre from October 15. ADRIFT has been created by Els Dietvorst, a Belgian visual artist and filmmaker based in Co Wexford, and it will feature pieces conceived specifically for these two very different venues.
At Wexford Arts Centre, the artist will explore primeval feelings and ideas, playing with materials such as light, wood and clay. Wexford County Council will house a monumental piece about human resilience built in collaboration with sculptor Ciaran O’Brien and a small team of dedicated artists and craftswomen.
The exhibition opens on Saturday, October 12 at County Hall (2 p.m.) and Wexford Arts Centre (4 p.m.) and includes an informal gallery talk between Arts Els Dietvorst and Curators Catherine Bowe and Karla Sánchez Zepeda followed by Laoise Garvey performing the song This Is What You Came For.
“For me, creation is a collective process, inclusive and permeable to the world, to the living and the dead, to small neglected objects as well as to each other’s ideas,” said Els.
The title ADRIFT is a metaphor for how Els sees our contemporary world as being not anchored but floating freely without a sense of purpose or direction.
Her work has been shown and supported by organizations such as the Kaaitheatre, Brussels; Kunstenfestivaldesarts, Brussels; M HKA Museum of Modern Art, Antwerp; and BAK, Utrecht as well as internationally in New York, Casablanca, London, and Vienna. She has been awarded international prizes such as the Evens Arts Prize in 2017, and more recently the Belgian Art Prize in 2021.
