Exhibition «Augmented «Auguries by Claire Halpin

The Olivier Cornet Gallery is presenting Claire Halpin’s first exhibition at the gallery since the monumental Jigmap series of works was acquired and exhibited at IMMA in its museum wide exhibition The Narrow Gate of The Here and Now – Chapter Four: Protest and Conflict. This has significantly positioned Claire’s paintings in an international context of contemporary and historically acclaimed political artists looking at protest, conflict, contested histories and responding to the global issues of our times.

The exhibition title – Augmented Auguries – links the livefeed of news and social media via satellite and drones to the ancient Roman practice of augury – the interpreting of omens from the observed behaviour of birds, and the sometimes fabricated auspices that could be used to pervert a political course of action.

This timely exhibition – Augmented Auguries – brings together an ambitious body of Claire’s work developed over the last two years building on themes and concepts previously explored in her paintings. Responding to sites of conflict and contested histories internationally from the Pandemic, storming of the Capitol, to the war in Ukraine, now Claire turns her lens to national conflict and protest in Northern Ireland. The spectacle and theatrics of conflict and protest are documented and recorded through paint. The works attempt to navigate the complexity of the contemporary theatre of war and cultural wars as battlefields move to the battlespace of the online and livefeed of news, images and social media. All played out in the steady stream of content, real, fake and created by whom for whom and for what intent and future consequences in writing history.

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Claire Halpin is a Dublin born and based artist, curator and arts educator. She graduated from D.I.T, Dublin with B.A Honours in Painting (1996) and went on to complete her Masters in Fine Art at Gray’s School of Art, Aberdeen, Scotland (1998).

In 2021, IMMA / Irish Museum of Modern Art acquired three paintings from the Jigmap Series for the IMMA Collection. They are currently on exhibition at the Irish Museum of Modern Art in Chapter Four of The Narrow Gate of the Here and Now: Protest and Conflict at IMMA until November 2022.