Review: Ann Craven’s Roses

From a distance this looks like a nice but plain exhibition – simply roses, black and white. However on closer inspection there’s a more thoughtful side to it. The artist first paints a bouquet of white roses, then paints the mirror image of the resulting oil on linen piece. They cause an odd and slow-grasping effect on the viewer. It reminds us of memories and how they begin to fade from the instance until they become more and more ambiguous.

Ann Craven began painting flowers after her mother’s death, painting the roses from her funeral. Craven believes the way the roses become looser and less defined is like the deterioration and loss of reality in memories from the instance of happening – the memories become like a photocopy of a photocopy.

In the exhibition on the desk is a bouquet of real white roses. This made some of us curious as to why the real roses were there, something about it seemed wrong. The real roses are, we think, obstructive to the intentionally non-decorative and unrealistic feeling the painted roses impress upon you.

The art has been displayed in New York, the pairs split between two galleries. Here at the Kilkenny Arts Festival, you are lucky enough to see the pairs intact. We definitely recommend that you see this exhibition soon.

Michael Hennessy, Turlough Kelly, Hugh Tulloch

Photos by Turlough Kelly

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