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“At the heart of this exhibition is the idea of being somewhere else - of being dissatisfied with one’s lot and wanting to escape - though the travel involved happens in the relative comfort of the studio while the real world with its own mixture of conformity and absurdity is only the thickness of a wall away. But what if this imagined world turns out to be more ugly and absurd than the real one…?”
Stephen Brandes

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In Mercier & Camier Beckett wrote: "We don’t travel as far as I know for the pleasure of travelling; we’re dumb but not that dumb." And yet the artist Stephen Brandes did travel, most notably when he underwent an ‘epic’ journey of sorts, eight years ago, retracing his grandmothers route from Romania to Britain, a journey that was documented in hundreds of postcard sized drawings.

From these he has created cartographies of hybrid spaces, counter-spaces which challenge the modern use of cartography as a means of eliminating fiction from the world.

Stylistically Brandes draws inspiration from what he calls the ‘barbed magic’ of Eastern European artforms as well as American underground comics and medieval cartography; it is as if the fairytales of Eastern Europe have been filtered through the consciousness of Kafka and dipped in the strange animated fantasies of Jan Svankmajer. His work consists of small paintings and drawings on canvas and paper and large fantastical landscapes both arboreal and architectural in form and produced on floor vinyl, reminding us in Tim Stott’s words of "those mildly sinister moments of suburban ennui that leave one doodling on the linoleum floor.’

Ard Bia Gallery for the duration of the show has changed its name anagrammatically to ArdBid a Gallery. Inside, the gallery space in Brandes words "intimates a mismarriage of discotheque and home-spun travel bureau where paintings and drawings advertise places - some of which don’t exist and the ones that do, bare no relation to their depiction…"

This exhibition is curated by Russell Hart director of economicthoughtgallery.

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Ardbia Gallery,
4 William Street West, Galway, Ireland.

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t : 00353 87 2368648 / 00353 91 516630
email us
w: www.ardbia.com

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gallery opening hours:
Tuesday – Saturday 11am – 6pm