Kerlin show a major endorsement for Spillane

Pádraig Spillane is a young artist from Cork whose work is currently showing at the prestigious Kerlin Gallery, Dublin as part of their ‘Fortnight Features Presents II’.

The gallery was drawn to Spillane through his treatment of photographic images as sculptural objects.

“Sometimes I do traditional sculpture,” says Spillane. “But the work I am showing at the Kerlin is a series of photographic objects — these are photographs that I am presenting in a non-traditional way. They are framed but borderless, and I have placed them on the ground. Some are placed in corners to make an interesting activation of space.”

Being picked up by the Kerlin is a fantastic endorsement for a young artist. Spillane values the gallery’s commitment to “critical engagement in a contemporary art world” while operating as a commercial gallery.

Spillane’s practice is built on his undergraduate degree in philosophy from The Milltown Institute in Dublin. He considers it a “good archive to pull things out of and an interesting way to think laterally about subjects.”

He did not do art for his Leaving Cert. “I was one of those nerdy teenagers who picked up a philosophy book and fell in love with it.” But he was making “visual things” from early on. “Something I was doing in my teens was collage, just for fun. It is odd that 15 years later I’m doing things with collage again and I’m seeing attributes of collage in how they’re broken down academically rather than for fun.”

Spillane has become well known in photography circles through his exhibition making company Stag & Deer, which he and Pamela Condell founded in 2010. They produce and curate exhibitions in non-gallery spaces and more recently in galleries and museums.

In 2013 Spillane completed his MFA in Art and Process at CIT Crawford College of Art and Design. This time was used to refocus his practice and explore the parameters of making lens based work.

It was here that sculpture became a prominent part of his practice and he began to consider the images outside their traditional function. The introduction of metal objects, the folding and manipulation of the image and the rejection of traditional hanging techniques all position the work in a sculptural sphere “I use sculpture to amplify my images,” he says, “but I also make images to use sculpture. It’s a combination of the two.” The image and the object have become entwined; either can produce the starting point of a piece of work.

Spillane’s work has been figurative since he first picked up a camera in 2006. “Portraiture was the main thing I was interested in with photography. I was interested in how people sit, how people stand, how people use their hands, how gesture operates.” Figuration has carried through as the central thread in his practice.

Spillane is interested in fracture in his current work, both in terms of people and materials. “What happens when we are stripped bare?” he asks. “And what happens when things are broken up? When we are given something to view, the borders of it can tell as much of a story as the actual object within it.”

n‘Fortnight Features Presents II’ runs at the Kerlin Gallery, Dublin until April 15.

Spillane’s work will also appear in ‘Mammoth’ at Treignac Projet, France which opens on May 31.