"The Crowd Transfixed: Joy Gerrard"
2003-11-19 until 2003-12-20
Temple Bar Gallery and Studios
Dublin, , IE Ireland

Joy Gerrard's exhibition for Studio 6 at TBG&S develops her ongoing interest in representing abstract urban spaces.  Gerrard's formally distinctive works, which often involve the construction of ‘faux’ architectural models that are then photographed, offer representations of imaginary cities in which the mass movements of individuals has been meticulously mapped.  These non-existent environments are, however, presented in such a way as to unsettle our sense of scale, the work seeking to blur distinctions between human and natural forms.

In her photographic works Gerrard presents imagery that might on one level seem to represent a utopian version of urban space —  the precision of these imagined spaces creates the sense of a crowd flowing peacefully through a carefully constructed city. Yet at the same time there is something disquieting in the way that individuals are represented by tiny pins, each exactly the same, each lit by the same relentless light.  By inventing these spaces, Gerrard aims to provoke a disconcerting sense of event or expectancy, invoking dystopian spectres of social exclusion, over-population and environmental crises.  By framing momentary configurations of individuals, society and the city, she investigates the confines and barriers — social, physical and metaphorical — that exist within the contemporary metropolis.

All of the works in this exhibition feature variations on such images of crowds and abstract spaces.  However, the show will include not only Gerrard's photographic imagery but also a series of new three-dimensional works, some of which suggest new directions in the artist's exploration of space and movement.  An outdoor event involving the release of hundreds of balloons will also be staged and documented by the artist during the period of the exhibition, the results of which will form the basis of new work.

Joy Gerrard was born in Ireland in 1971. She graduated from the N.C.A.D in 1995 and completed an M.A from the Royal College of Art in 2001. She is currently based between Dublin and London and is a lecturer in Visual Art at the Institute of Art, Design and Technology, Dun Laoghaire.  In 2002 Gerrard had solo exhibitions with Sara Pearce Fine Art, London and at the Judith Wall Gallery, New York. Recent group shows include Art Futures; Contemporary Art Society, London, The Holy Show at the Chester Beatty Library, Thy Neighbours Ox at Space Station Sixty Five, London and Flix at the Rubicon Gallery.  She is currently completing Cloud, a Public Art Sculpture for the O.P.W in Waterford and working on a second Public Art Project titled Route for Land Securities in Victoria, London.  She has received many awards including the Arts Council 2002 Travel and Mobility Award, the Michael Byrne Award (also from the Arts Council in 2000) and a European Artists Pepinieres Award, Jyvaskyla, Finland (six month residency) in 1999. She is extensively represented in both Public and Private collections in Europe and America.  Joy Gerrard is represented by Sara Pearce Fine Art, London.

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