‘Arse pounding laboratory’
&
‘The Farmers Gift
{Hay Bale Hollower}‘
Sculpture assemblage as featured in ‘Inverts on the castle wall, Perverts in the tall grass below’ 2022 at Custom House Studios and Gallery, Westport Co. Mayo, Ireland. Kindly suporrted by Arts Council Ireland.
Paper pulp, plaster, glitter, glass, glazed ceramic, bisqued ceramic, wire, paint, resin, wood, expanding foam, joint compound, silver leaf, cardboard, grass, plastic, woven rushes, mixing bowls
Dimensions vary
Paper pulp, plaster, glitter, glass, glazed ceramic, bisqued ceramic, wire, paint, resin, wood, expanding foam, joint compound, silver leaf, cardboard, grass, plastic, woven rushes, mixing bowls
Dimensions vary
‘Inverts on the castle wall, Perverts in the tall grass below’, is a body of work and culmination of investigations into rural Ireland, aesthetic language associated with rural and regional art spaces and queer communities.
Using historical canon to construct alternative narratives around queerness and more specifically rural Irish queerness, the title of the exhibition frames language, and Anglicisation of queer academia and asks how this written and documented theory manifests and is engaged in Irish culture in its pre and post-colonial history.
When explicitly archived theory and queer / art canon exists for an urban anglicised society, the question is posed, “how do rural Irish queers reckon with this establishment in context of its own complicated colonial history?”
Using craft processes, folklore, and a queering of canon, ‘Inverts on the castle wall, Perverts in the tall grass below’ expands and proposes ideas and making that draws from a culmination of a childhood in rural Ireland, an art education in an urban centre, and a re-evaluation of queerness and reconciliation of place and self upon return to rural Ireland.
Kian Benson Bailes is an Irish artist residing in the West of Ireland. He graduated from IADT, Dublin in 2016, his multifaceted practice explores rural Ireland, visual language and identity politics.
Recent exhibitions include ‘Bog Cottage: Life in the Community’ The Hyde Bridge Gallery, Sligo, ‘Queer As You Are’ Luan Gallery, Athlone and ‘Shiftings’ Kilkenny Arts Office, Kilkenny.
Using historical canon to construct alternative narratives around queerness and more specifically rural Irish queerness, the title of the exhibition frames language, and Anglicisation of queer academia and asks how this written and documented theory manifests and is engaged in Irish culture in its pre and post-colonial history.
When explicitly archived theory and queer / art canon exists for an urban anglicised society, the question is posed, “how do rural Irish queers reckon with this establishment in context of its own complicated colonial history?”
Using craft processes, folklore, and a queering of canon, ‘Inverts on the castle wall, Perverts in the tall grass below’ expands and proposes ideas and making that draws from a culmination of a childhood in rural Ireland, an art education in an urban centre, and a re-evaluation of queerness and reconciliation of place and self upon return to rural Ireland.
Kian Benson Bailes is an Irish artist residing in the West of Ireland. He graduated from IADT, Dublin in 2016, his multifaceted practice explores rural Ireland, visual language and identity politics.
Recent exhibitions include ‘Bog Cottage: Life in the Community’ The Hyde Bridge Gallery, Sligo, ‘Queer As You Are’ Luan Gallery, Athlone and ‘Shiftings’ Kilkenny Arts Office, Kilkenny.
