This is not a flower, World Flower Show, RDS 19-22 June, 2014

Aoife Collins, Niall De Buitléar, Vanessa Donoso López, Hannah Fitz, Wendy Judge, Maria McKinney, Oisín O’Brien, Paul Hallahan, Alan Phelan.

Irish Artist Alan Phelan has worked with local flower arranging groups participatory projects in the past as was approached to organise a display of contemporary art for The World Flower Show. The parallels between creative activities are easy to see however worlds apart the practices are. Responses from artist have been enthusiastic and curious as this is an unusual meeting of very different creative activities. The restriction on the visual artists is that they cannot overlap with the materials used by the floral artists, namely flowers. With this in mind 9 artists will be showing a wide range of contemporary sculpture that reference plant material in specific and oblique ways. The artists are: Aoife Collins, Niall De Buitléar, Vanessa Donoso López, Hannah Fitz, Wendy Judge, Maria McKinney, Oisín O’Brien, Paul Hallahan, Alan Phelan.

The title behind “this is not a flower” in part, comes from the Belgian surrealist René Magritte’s famous 1928-29 painting of a pipe under which he wrote “Ceci n’est pas une pipe” (This is not a pipe). The title of the painting is actually “The Treachery of Images” and the work itself points to the problems inherent in representation. The artworks on show are not flowers but are nevertheless flowers without flowers! However there is no hierarchy of representation here and the exhibit hopes to explore some elements of contemporary Irish art that connects across disciplines and practices. This then references the challenges of showing art about flowers without flowers and the colliding of worlds at this extraordinary event.