Hymns to Unknowability and Devotion is a presentation of vital and vibrant esoteric art from Dolorosa de la Cruz, who presents a multifaceted view of the sacred and the sublime, in forms both alluring and arresting. Here the impulse towards the unknown, via the experience of the ecstatic, wields the medium of art and yields the result of ritual as pathways, reaching into and grasping from the seeming void a wealth of wisdom, and bearing witness to the creation of new forms. Art as divination, intuition as strength, experience as alchemy, and abstraction as a great ocean into which all words are dissolved: Dolorosa’s work is above all a devotional practice, a visceral communion with living spirits underscored by its own logic, as the words of Austin Osman Spare have stated, “the Law of sorcery is its own Law”, using sympathetic symbols. The show will be accompanied with an equally vibrant soundtrack from Irish artists, Brian Conniffe and Nimf.
Co-presented with GalleryX
“Sídheógaídhe – ‘Little fairies’, fugitive frottage-forms emerge, moth-like, out of the dark matter.
Tooth-faeries, sidereal imps, homuculi, perhaps. Or cloud demons of the night, Dream Anúabhair? If so, these are among the aos sí – the beautiful and weird fairy host.
Engendered from the micro-big-bang impact of pigment against paper.
Energized by the centrifugal force of a twist of the hand upon the back of the sheet while the pigment is still moist.
White on black – an analogue photo-chemical process with the lamp of Moonlight as fixative.
Red on black – lifeblood, sacrifice, and the human spirit. Or the insignia of a deadly snake. Anarchism, cinnabar, and the ‘Villa dei Misteri’…
Like solar flares, viscous sputum and gouache splashes arc from their shoulders and spines.
Like fire-flies they flicker upon heightened receptors, pareidolia in flux, confounding our senses.
Kalendae that proclaim their intense, concentrated sparkling existence, in a blink of our eyes. (Do they slip beneath the eye-lids?)
How long can they expect to live? For an earth-season, or a lunar-cycle? Or for as long as we perceive them?
Do their figurative attributes transform depending upon the viewer?
Will Schrödinger’s cat perceive a feline spirit?”
–Stephen Pochin, Jerusalem Press
Dolorosa de la Cruz is a visual artist based in Dublin, Ireland and curator of The Cabinet of Solar Plexus blog. Her art is an ongoing enquiry into spiritual, magical and esoteric matters, through the female sensibility. Dolorosa’s work has been exhibited in Dublin, Belfast, London, New York, Seattle, Cleveland, Portland, Brussels, Poland and Chile. It has also been published in several contemporary occult and art journals and books. In addition to her work as an artist, Dolorosa is active in art education and co-curates with GalleryX.
GalleryX is a new gallery in Dublin, Ireland specialising in figurative and surrealist art. Their focus is on the fantastical, the sensual and the macabre; on alternative desire and tormented bodies; on the bizarrely beautiful, the unsettling and the grotesque. Our intent is to facilitate, curate and showcase new alternative work from emerging Irish and international artists and to host visiting artists from the global community. // www.galleryx.ie/
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