27 June – 23 August 2009

Eamon O’Kane’s exhibition at ArtSway, entitled Re-enactment, includes installation and video works. Using 17th century-style furniture produced for a previous exhibition at Plan 9 in Bristol (as part of the CASE HISTORIES touring programme), O’Kane staged (in the New Forest) a re-enactment of the meal James II had under the sycamore tree in Ireland. The furniture is installed in the gallery space with the video documentation of the re-enactment. This is connected to another re-enactment of a hunt led byJames II (James II was the last king to hunt in the New Forest in the late 17th Century). Both the meal and the hunt have been reconstructed using actors in period costume. Drawings and paintings of the sycamore tree and the New Forest are also incorporated into the installations. Other works include wall drawings and wall paintings of maps and photographs charting the history of the artist’s parent’s house and its previous occupants. These include architectural plans outlining ideas for the restoration of parts of the house including a section which was demolished by a previous owner in the 1950s in order to avoid housing rates. Some of these ideas have a fantastical quality to them where O’Kane merges iconic architecture from a range of periods with the house he grew up in.

Re-enactment is one part of the touring project CASE HISTORIES by Eamon O’Kane, consisting of a series of international exhibitions of new work commissioned by Rugby Art Gallery and Museum; the Contemporary Art Society and Economist Plaza, London; RARE Gallery, New York; Galerie Schuster, Berlin; Plan 9, Bristol; and ArtSway, New Forest. CASE HISTORIES is financially supported by Arts Council England, Culture Ireland and Bristol City Council.

Eamon O’Kane Biography
Eamon O'Kane was born in 1974 and is a practicing artist who has studied in Dublin, Belfast and New York. He has exhibited widely and is the recipient of many awards and scholarships including the Taylor Art Award, The Tony O'Malley Award and a Fulbright Award. He has shown in exhibitions curated by Dan Cameron, Lynne Cooke, Klaus Ottman, Salah M. Hassan, Jeremy Millar, Mike Fitzpatrick, Sarah Pierce and Apinan Poshyananda. He has taken part in EV+A, Limerick, Ireland six times including 2005 when he received an EV+A open award from Dan Cameron. In 2006 he was short-listed for the AIB Prize and received a Pollock Krasner foundation grant. O'Kane has had over forty solo exhibitions including shows in Berlin, Frankfurt, Dublin, Zurich, New York, London and Copenhagen. He was short-listed for the Jerwood Drawing Prize in London in 2007. His artwork is in numerous public and private collections worldwide including Deutsche Bank; Burda Museum, Baden Baden, Germany; Sammlung Südhausbau, Munich; Limerick City Gallery; FORTIS; DUBLIN 98FM Radio Station; Microsoft; Bank of Ireland Collection; Irish Contemporary Arts Society; Country Bank, New York; Office of Public Works; P.M.P.A. and Guardian Insurance; Donegal County Library; UNIBANK, Denmark; NKT Denmark; HK, Denmark; Den Danske Bank, Denmark; Letterkenny Institute of Technology; University Of Ulster, Belfast; Aspen RE, London; Rugby Art Gallery and Museum Collection. Eamon completed a three-month residency at Centre Culturel Irlandais in Paris in 2008. O'Kane is currently Visiting Research Fellow in Fine Art at UWE in Bristol, UK.

www.eamonokane.com/tour

Exhibition Associated Events:

Gallery Talk: Eamon O'Kane in Conversation with Peter Bonnell
Saturday 27 June 2009 at 3pm
Eamon O'Kane will discuss the international touring project CASE HISTORIES and his new work Re-enactment, commissioned by ArtSway, with curator Peter Bonnell. O'Kane will outline the genesis of his two new films for Re-enactment, which were filmed on location in Beaulieu in the New Forest with authentic mid-17th Century re-enacters.
FREE: Booking Essential.

Art in Context (Living History): The Art of Re-enactment
A talk by Helen Down, Treasurer, Earl of Essex Regiment of Foote
Wednesday 15 July 2009 at 7pm
Join Totton resident and English Civil War re-enacter Helen Down as she talks about her involvement in Eamon O'Kane's two newly commissioned films for his exhibition at ArtSway. Helen is the Treasurer for the Earl of Essex Regiment of Foote - an organisation that seeks to educate children and adults of the historical background to one of the most momentous events in English history: the English Civil War. Helen will talk about the activities and background of her regiment; the importance of 'living history'; where the regiment mount events across the country; their education activities, and also the background to the Civil War. For more information about the Earl of Essex Regiment of Foote visit: www.earlofessex.org.uk
FREE: Booking Essential.

Publication Launch: CASE HISTORIES by Eamon O'Kane
Saturday 22 August 2009 at 3.30pm
A 100-page, full-colour, hardback publication CASE HISTORIES will be officially launched at ArtSway. The publication will feature images from each part of O'Kane's major international touring project, with a critical text by Dan Cameron and transcripts of O'Kane's public discussions with Paul O'Neill and Paul Hobson.
FREE: All Welcome.

To book a place on any of the above events please contact Jack Lewis on 01590 682260 (ext.6) or email: jack.lewis@artsway.org.uk