Future Exhibition: Peter Finnemore | Nature Boy
4 July – 30 August 2014. Preview 3 July from 7pm
Millennium Court Arts Centre is delighted to present Nature Boy, an exhibition by internationally acclaimed artist Peter Finnemore.
Nature Boy is the artist’s first major solo exhibition in Ireland. It brings together a large body of photographic and video work focussing on Finnemore’s continuing investigation of the private familial landscape of his garden in rural Wales, which he transforms “into poetic symbol as home, territory, burial ground, [and] paradise.”* His work has been described as dream-like, unsettling, clever and irreverent, and seriously funny.
The garden in Nature Boy is a microcosm of the wider world; the work tackles themes, ranging from conflict to notions of national identity and the adoption of cultural camouflage. At other times it addresses nature itself with references to pagan folklore or by focussing on the intense colour of the garden in bloom as a vehicle of poetic realism. In his video work Finnemore develops themes and motifs which fragment, collide and echo with the photographic and physical, installed elements of the exhibition. He alludes to subjects as diverse as philosophy, Zen and Schrödinger’s cat, the politics of dancing, landscape and art history, fire, the shed as fortress and dwelling, the militarization of consciousness, Westerns, Martial Arts Movies, Elvis, Nature and Culture, and Guerrilla Gardeners.
*Cynthia Greig in Zen Gardener Catalogue, Oriel Mostyn Gallery, 2004
About the Artist: Peter Finnemore is an artist working within photographic art, multi-media installation and video. He has exhibited widely in solo shows throughout Wales, Scotland, England and has been included in numerous group exhibitions in Britain,United States and Europe; he represented Wales at the 51st Venice Biennale of Art, 2005. He currently works as an artist and is Senior Lecturer of Art and Design at University of Wales Trinity St David. He is based in Llanelli, Wales.
Our Sponsors for Nature Boy: Riverside Garden Sheds, Lisburn & Smylie Sectional Builidings, Bangor
