Kate Fahey—Mouthnotes
Preview: 6–8pm Thursday 1st SeptemberRegister hereExhibition continues: Friday 2nd - Saturday 17th Gallery open: 12–6pm, Thursday–Saturday
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Pallas Projects/Studios are pleased to present Kate Fahey—Mouthnotes the fourth exhibition of our 2022 Artist-Initiated Projects programme.
1.And out of the vague and limitless body sprang a central mass.1.2.1 And from its mouth unspeakable things leaked.1.2.3.2.1. out...into this world...1.2.3.4.3.2.1. And The stoma moved. The stone moved…..ahem….1.2.3.4.5.4.3.2.1. moved-Shhhhhhhhhhhh SHHHHHHHHHHHHHssssssssshhhhhhhhhh1.2.3.4.5.6.5.4.3.2.1. Unbounded. Unfiltered. Unfibbered. I moved down dow- fell into the deep hole.1.2.3.4.5.6.7.6.5.4.3.2.1. Into the split. Into the- er-ha-AAAAHHHHHH 1.2.3.4.5.6.7.8.7.6.5.4.3.2.1. tt Mmmm jumped up - Mmmm looked on- Hhhhhaaaaa carried on.8.Uhhhhh…oowwwww….A dark gap echothrough-uh8.7.8. spilled out of me words…and again!8.7.6.7.8. dum dumdum…pushed out-broke-out tunneled8.7.6.5.6.7.8.leaked..... spillllllll-llllllips....drips...8.7.6.5.4.5.6.7.8. out of my unstoney face- gObblers8.7.6.5.4.3.4.5.6.7.8. HnnnnnnNNNNNNNnnnnnnnnnnnNNNNNNNNnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnNNNNNNNnnnnnnn8.7.6.5.4.3.2.3.4.5.6.7.8. then- spat8.7.6.5.4.3.2.1.2.3.4.5.6.7.8.then eeeeeeeee----uuuuuuuu
This exhibition’s starting point is An Cloch Labhrais (The Speaking Stone), a huge glacial erratic made from conglomerate puddingstone rock. Located in Co. Waterford, it is known as a ‘truth’ telling oracle stone. According to legend, the dramatic crack in the stone occurred after a woman perjured herself in its presence – her untruth causing it to split in two.
Mouthnotes reclaims the stone's split, and reimagines it as a mouth from which a multitude of utterances and un/speakable things leak and spill. Through this disorderly form of self-expression, non-conforming vocalisations flow up to her mouth and out through her tongue*. The installation for Pallas plays with the fabric and history of the exhibition site, a former school, simultaneously stuttering and echoing the order of language, numeracy, and structured behaviour. Breaking away from preconfigured expectations and narratives, mouths and voices separate and reunite, unearthing an imagined enunciation**. In the exhibition, these plural erratic agencies emerge through a series of sculptural, textual and audio-visual Mouthnotes.
* Carson, Ann. The Gender of Sound in Glass, Irony, and God. New York: New Directions Books, 2005.** LaBelle, Brandon. Lexicon of the Mouth: Poetics and Politics of Voice and the Oral Imaginary. New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2014.
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Kate Fahey is an artist based between Kilkenny and London working with print, sculpture, moving image and installation. She received an MA in Fine Art Print at the Royal College of Art, London in 2015 and in 2020 she completed a practice-based PhD at the University of the Arts London. Recent exhibitions include em-bracing at The Lab Gallery (2022), Living Balance at The Library Project (2022), blubbing, (solo) at Commonage London, (2021) Woman in the Machine, Visual Carlow (2021) and Gut Feeling, Arti et Amiticiae, Amsterdam (2021). In 2021/22 she was the recipient of the New Contemporaries and SPACE Studios Bursary. She has completed residencies including ZK/U Centre for Art and Urbanistics, Berlin (2019); Leitrim Sculpture Centre (2018); The British School at Rome (2017) and Callan Workhouse Union, Kilkenny (2016).
The artist would like to thank James Briggs, Martin and Majella Fahey, Eva Lerche-Lerchenborg, Séamus McCormack, Elisabeth Molin and the Arts Council of Ireland.
www.katefahey.co.uk @kate_fahey
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Artist-Initiated Projects at Pallas Projects/Studios is an open-submission, annual gallery programme of 8 x 3-week exhibitions taking place from March-November 2022. This unique programme of funded, artist-initiated projects selected via open call is highly accessible to artists, with a focus on early career, emerging artists and recent graduates. Projects are supplemented with artists' talks, texts, workshops or performances, and gallery visits by colleges and local schools.
Full Artist-Initiated Projects programme
Pallas Projects/Studios is funded by The Arts Council