Niall de Buitléar
Niall de Buitléar: Fleet, found paper plane, projection, image courtesy the artist.
Niall de Buitléar was born in 1983 in Dublin. He is the current occupant of the Irish Artists’ Residential Studio at the Red Stables in the St Annes Park, Dublin. He was awarded the Wexford Arts Centre and Wexford Arts Office’s Emerging Artist award 2009-2010. In 2008 he had solo exhibitions at G126, Galway and at the Lab, Dublin. He has also participated in the two person exhibitions Histories Matter at Wexford Arts Centre, 2009 and One Way or Another at Queen Street Studios, 2007. His work has been featured in numerous group exhibitions including Dawning of an Aspect, Green on Red Gallery, Dublin 2009; Bookish: When Books Become Art, Lewis Glucksman Gallery, Cork, 2008; and An Exhibition In 5 Chapters, Contemporary Art Centre, Vilnius, 2007. He will have solo exhibitions at the Wexford Arts Centre and the Lab in 2011.
While the primary focus of de Buitléar’s work is the production of sculptures and drawings, he occasionally works in other media such as photography, installation, video, and text. The Found Bookmark Project is a work which has had an number of manifestations each of which was in a different context. The work essentially involves the collection of material that has been left between the pages of books by users of a library. Most recently, a version of this work was made using material sourced from public libraries in Dublin and was shown at the National Library as part of the Douglas Hyde Gallery’s off-site exhibition Preponderance of the Small.
The planes depicted have been made with varying levels of skill and vary from crude approximations to complex designs and have been fashioned from a range of paper objects. I see the these objects as expressions of everday optimism and the inevitability of failure – Niall de Buitléar
For the exhibition, Paperplane, de Buitléar produced a projected piece titled Fleet. The piece consists of a series of still images depicting a collection of paper aeroplanes which were found by the artist on the street since May 2008. The title refers to both the term for a collection of aeroplanes and the ephemeral nature of the objects. The planes depicted have been made with varying levels of skill and vary from crude approximations to complex designs. They have been fashioned from a range of paper objects. These objects are expressions of everday optimism and the inevitability of failure.
Paperplane is curated by Shinnors Scholar Mary Conlon and forms the first part of her curatorial project Six Memos based on Italo Calvino’s Six Memos for the Next Millenium, 1985.
Paperplane is currently on show at the Joinery, Arbour Hill until 9 February. It will be shown in Occupy Space, Thomas Street, Limerick City from 18 February – 21 March. In addition to De Buitléar’s Fleet, the Limerick version of the exhibition will also feature The Found Bookmark Project.
See the projected work from the show at the Joinery here.