Lost Lace - The Drawings by Miriam McConnon

Miriam McConnon’s exhibition 'Lost Lace – The Drawings' coincides with the artist’s public art installation Lost Lace at Dublin’s Iveagh Gardens from 15th October to 23rd October 2022. McConnon documented her preliminary ideas for the outdoor installation in a series of large drawings in charcoal, colouring pencil and pastel. The drawings give a rare glimpse into the artist’s practice and thought process leading up to the finished installation.

The project ‘Lost lace’ is a collaborative project between the visual artist Miriam McConnon and the poet Jessica Traynor with the engaged participation of the families who have lost loved ones to covid 19 in Ireland.
The project has been supported by the Office of Public Works (OPW) and the Dublin City Arts Office.

Miriam McConnon’s outdoor installation ‘Lost Lace’ is made up of approximately ten thousand white roses made by the artist from individual white handkerchiefs. The artist placed the roses around one of the fountains at Dublin's Iveagh Gardens. The handkerchief roses form a delicate pattern of traditional Irish Lace. Each handkerchief rose symbolizes a life lost in Ireland and Northern Ireland due to the Coronavirus Pandemic.

Each single handkerchief rose in the outdoor installation and here at the gallery references the small cloths or ‘clooties’ that were hung traditionally on trees near the site of holy wells in Pagan Ireland. The handkerchief was believed to drive illness away by absorbing it. The artist has chosen to place them in a floral lace pattern hinting at the concept of the man-made object imitating nature in an attempt to find resolve.

The single rose is a symbol of devotion. Here this devotion becomes collective, signifying the national and personal loss. The two installations urge the public to not lose sight of the individual life, the single rose. In these installations -and in the series of drawings presented at the gallery- McConnon emphasises the solitary path of individual grief in unison with the national and collective loss, urging the people of Ireland to unite in grief and in the commemoration of the lives lost to Covid 19.

Collaboration with the Poet Jessica Traynor:

The poet Jessica Traynor has been commissioned to write a series of four poems, taking as a guiding principle the ambition to honour those things we have lost in the past two years – people, skills, art, connection. She has explored and responded to themes such as the lost art of Irish lacemaking, the ancient practice of tying ‘clooties’ at holy wells, and the words and messages submitted on the project's website by those who have lost friends and relatives to covid 19 in Ireland. She weaved these themes together through poetry that is also accessible to the public through the use of a QR code allowing visitors to the Iveagh Gardens and to our gallery space access to a transcript of the poems, and a recording of the poet reading them.

Jessica Traynor is a poet, essayist and librettist. Her debut poetry collection, Liffey Swim (Dedalus Press, 2014), was shortlisted for the Strong/Shine Award and in 2016 was named one of the best poetry debuts of the past five years on Bustle.com. The Quick was a 2019 Irish Times poetry choice. Awards include the Ireland Chair of Poetry Bursary and Hennessy New Writer of the Year. Paper Boat, a new opera commission from Irish National Opera, will premiere in 2022. Essays and articles have recently appeared in Winter Papers, The Dublin Review, Banshee, Tolka and We Are Dublin. Slapped Actor, a book of essays, has been listed for the Fitzcarraldo Editions Essay Prize and the Deborah Rogers Foundation Award in 2021. Residencies in 2021-22 include the Yeats Society Sligo, The Seamus Heaney Home Place and the DLR LexIcon. She is a Creative Fellow of UCD. Her third collection, Pit Lullabies, was published by Bloodaxe Books in March 2022, and is a Poetry Book Society Recommendation.

About Miriam McConnon and her work in this project:

Miriam McConnon is represented by the Olivier Cornet Gallery in Ireland. This is her fourth solo exhibition with us.

Miriam McConnon's outdoor installation Lost Lace and her series of related drawings are consistent with her other artwork in its use of the personal narrative to communicate social issues to a wider public audience. In this case an individual life lost to covid is represented as a single white handkerchief rose. It is presented along with over 10,000 other roses in a lace pattern in Dublin's Iveagh gardens.

As she often does, she calls on the personal narrative behind domestic objects to mark events of change in history. In this case, through the objects of the handkerchief and lace, she relates the objects to the ancient Irish tradition of hanging clooties (handkerchiefs) at the sacred sites of wells in pagan Ireland in the hope of curing an illness.

The use of bedding material to make the roses references the sensitive and intimate narrative of a person's last days in bed due to the onset of Covid 19. The installation Lost lace is a homage to the human story behind each of these ten thousand roses and urges the public not to lose sight of the individual life amidst the collective and national grief.
We are delighted to be able to show ‘Lost Lace II’ at the gallery, a ‘sample’ version of the larger installation at Dublin’s Iveagh Gardens.

Other exhibitions by Olivier Cornet Gallery, Dublin, Ireland.

Olivier Cornet Gallery, Dublin, Ireland.

Outrageous, Obscene and Offensive, a Bloomsday group show on censorship

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Olivier Cornet Gallery, Dublin, Ireland.

Swoon, a solo show by Mary A. Fitzgerald at Olivier Cornet Gallery

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Olivier Cornet Gallery, Dublin, Ireland.

War Paint by Conrad Frankel

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Olivier Cornet Gallery, Dublin, Ireland.

The Cold Bark Against My Back, a solo show by Vicky Smith

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Olivier Cornet Gallery, Dublin, Ireland.

Memento, Looking back, Looking forward

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