'Steel Trees' exhibition Apr-Jun 2008

Megan O'Beirne with Emma Nee Haslam (left) at Birr Arts Centre, Co. Offaly www.birrtheatre.com

Suas an Staighre

Tree remains

Tree remains in Banff

in Banff

Steel Trees - The Future?

This exhibition was prompted by witnessing the devastation of the lodge-pole pine trees in north -western Canada, specifically in British Columbia and Alberta, in 2007. The pest causing the depletion of the trees is a tiny insect, the pine-bark beetle. Formerly, this beetle was killed off by long severe winters. Now the winters in Canada are neither cold enough nor long enough to control the beetle due to the 4 degree rise in temperature there over the past century. The Canadian government is trying various strategies to cope with this scourge which is defacing their country by burning affected trees, developing detection technology and replanting affected areas. However, with the exponential increase in the number of pine-bark beetles, even the boreal forest which stretches across Canada to the east coast is under threat.

Along the River Bow in Banff National Park, Alberta, residues of affected dead trees make spectral viewing. Yet, in their brokenness they have assumed a new identity which seems to reproach, defy, strike attitudes which are moving, eloquent, and deeply affecting.

In the narrow Stephen’s Avenue in Calgary, Alberta, there’s an installation of tall steel ‘trees’ designed by architects to act as a wind-break. These stylised trees arch to a great height as if seeking the light amidst the high -rise buildings. They have grace and elegance and are the best that money could buy in terms of materials and design. In hindsight this installation was both prescient and ominous.

By juxtaposing these contrasting images which jog the imagination in different ways we may be prompted to evaluate the choices which global warming offers us.

Megan O’Beirne. 10th April 2008.

Stoney way

Stoney Way

Residency
Megan spent Aug.2007 at the Banff Centre for the Arts, Alberta, Canada.

See Patrick's Flickr set of photographs of her work and travels.

Megan in Banff with Cascade Mountain in the background

Dark corridor

Dark Corridor

Old wood, phoenix

Old wood Phoenix 3

Old wood drawing

Black and white photographs from the Badlands All images copyright (c) Megan O'Beirne 2007

Megan Feb.2007 Residency was at SÍM The Association of Icelandic Visual artists, Hafnarstræti 16, Reykjavik, Iceland.

Cast Shadows, Wexford Arts Centre
Jan 13-Feb 4, 2007, with Rhodri Jones

Photography

The Jan 2007 exhibition featured work based on the artist's recent travel in Ireland, Spain, Italy, Switzerland and France. Spectacular buildings such as the famous Frank Gehry Museum of Modern Art in Bilbao or the humbler vernacular architecture of Treviso or Wexford are captured in high summer. Light and shade are crisply defined and provide an intriguing upside-down world of sharp angles and sweeping curves. There is an exciting sense in the photographs of trying to arrest time itself, to catch it as it will never reveal itself again.

The James Joyce photograph page shows a selection from my 2003 & 2004 B&W photo exhibitions in Dublin and Trieste.