Jan van Eyck Academie
Post-Academic Institute
for Research and Production
Fine Art, Design, Theory
Jan van Eyck Academie
Post-Academic Institute
for Research and Production
Fine Art, Design, Theory
Advising researcher Fine Art
Orla Barry is an artist who centres her practice on language, written and spoken. Her work is strongly poetic and lyrical. Barry was born in Ireland, and the rhythm of her phraseology, the pictorial and narrative vernacular on which she draws, somehow evokes her homeland’s topography, climate and literary heritage.
Much of Orla Barry’s photographic, video, performance, text and sound installation work searches for the place where myth, memory and a robust and sensual physical reality intersect. She re-places herself where she’s been removed. She inserts her distinctive blatter of words into everyday talk.
By using several forms of address, including the first person voice-over and text recited by someone else, Barry invents fiction of multiple ‘I’s, which enrich our under-standing of the unfixed, multiple nature of identity. Barry’s use of female personae makes her feminism subtle, witty and pleasantly underhand.
Language, in written as well as spoken form, constitutes the essence of Orla Barry’s work. She ties words into phrases, kneads sentences into paragraphs, ending up with a visual as well as verbal unity, an apparently non-structured stream-of-consciousness with an open and poetical structure. The monologue In Wideawake is performed by Caroline Donnely. A stressed-out young woman trips up and down on a platform in high heels. Clearly abandoned to her fate, she repeatedly begs for someone to book her a hotel for the night. But no one is there. The abyss of existential anxiety and mental and physical collapse is opening up In front of her. “I am acrobatic with words, but my actions cannot always follow my tongue”. Her continuous stream of words is a touching interior monologue in which consciousness and subconscious clamp into each other in a hellish downward spiral leading to total abandonment.
video | 00:25:00 | col. | sound
orig. version: English
Wexford, IE / Brussels, BE.
De Ateliers, Amsterdam, NL.
University of Ulster, Belfast, GB.
National College of Art and Design, Dublin, IE.
Amicalement vôtre. Tourcoing, FR: Musée des Beaux-Arts.
Severin Dünser (Ed.). Brussels south airport. Vienna, AT: Krinzinger Projekte.
Portable stones. (Exh. Cat.).
Frie Depraetere & Paul Willemsen (Eds). Argosfestival 2003. Brussels, BE: Argos.
Prix de la jeune peinture Belge. Brussels, BE: Fonds Mercator. 2001 – Foundlings. Louvain, BE: Exhibitions International. Published on the occasion of the Biënnale Leuven 2001, 26 April-24 June.
Unsaid. Porto, PT: Galeria Canvas.
No shooting. With Els Dietvorst. Hasselt, BE: Provinciaal Centrum voor Beeldende Kunsten-Begijnhof.
From the gardener’s diary. In: Wildlife, ein Garten von für Künstler.
Among soldiers. In: ED, Firefly.
The sea, a huge megaphone. With Cherry Smyth. In: Janus, 2003(15).
The dark (bed)room. On Dirk Braeckman. In: A-prior, 7.
The black aura. On Rui Chafes. In: Kunst nu, February/March.
The view from the top of a mountain. On J. Tuerlinckx. In: Kunst nu May/June.
Rachel Withers. Orla Barry. Camden Arts Centre. In: Artforum, April, pp. 263-264.
Ann Demeester. W139 – Amsterdam, Report of an ongoing journey, p. 210. Amsterdam, NL: Roma; Amsterdam, NL: W139.
Katy Deepwell. Dialogues: Women artists from Ireland. IB Tauris.
Bruce Haines. Orla Barry, Portable stones. In: Kunst nu, February 2005, pp. 20-25.
Caroline Henderickx. Het universum van Orla Barry. In: Elle België, February, pp. 42-46.
Nina Broucke. (9 April). Wij maken kunst uit noodzaak, niet om te verkopen. In: De Morgen, pp. 4-10.
Pierre-Yves Desaive. (14 March). Portable stones, Orla Barry au S.M.A.K. In: l’Art M ê me, p. 35.
Eva Wittocx. Aperto Brussels. In: Flash Art, 235.
Jean-Michel Botquin (Ed.). Decennium. Kunst in België na Documenta IX/l’Art belge et l’après-Documenta IX. Ghent, BE: Ludion.
Eva Wittocx. Woorden als toverspreuken. In: KM – Kunstenaarsmaterialen, Spring.
Jan Braet. Orla Barry: Glameuse de voix. In: Dits, 1(2), pp. 64-71.
Curating the library. (26 April). With Tara Casey, Miles Champion, Wim Cuyvers, Els Dietvorst, Will Holder, Suchan Kinoshita & Willem Oorebeek. Antwerp, BE: DeSingel.
N6: The stone road. An urban countryside (notes from the first voyage to Mons). With Wim Cuyvers, Els Dietvorst & Johanna Kirsch. In: Making sense in the city. (17 – 20 December). Organized by Centre for Intercultural Communication and Interaction (CCI). Ghent, BE: Aula Ghent University.
Conversations with the sky. In: Opening week 2004. (13 – 17 January). Maastricht, NL: Jan van Eyck Academie.
Stones and rocks and gravestones and pebbles and sand and the wide open sea. (20 February). Maastricht, NL: Jan van Eyck Academie.
Portable stones and other works. (7 March – 11 June). Dublin, IE: Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA).
Mixing with the sound of a fountain.... (10 September – 9 October). Amsterdam, NL: W139.
Projectrooms. Madrid, ES: Art Contemporaneo (ARCO).
Portable stones. (25 November 2005 – 29 January 2006). London, GB: Camden Arts Centre. (Exh. Cat).
Portable stones. (5 February – 24 April). Ghent, BE: Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst (S.M.A.K.). (Exh. Cat).
Year X. (29 January – 18 April). Liège, BE: Nadja Vilenne.
Foundlings. Brussels, BE: Argos.
Foundlings. Dublin, IE: Temple Bar Gallery.
Unsaid. With Rui Chafes. Porto, PT: Galeria Canvas. (Exh. Cat).
Aimez vous les cocktails vip? With Olivier Foulon, Suchan Kinoshita, Aglaia Konrad & Eran Schaerf. (30 March – 3 June). Liège, BE: Galerie Nadja Vilenne .
Being in Brussels. (25 November 2006 – 20 January 2007). Brussels, BE: Argos. (Exh. Cat).
Gorge(l). Beklemming en verademing in de kunst. (7 October 2006 – 7 January 2007). Antwerp, BE: Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten. (Exh. Cat).
Outdoors. (6 May – 11 June). London, GB: Danielle Arnaud.
Art Brussels. (21 – 24 April). Brussels, BE: Expo-Halls.
Landscapes. Porto, PT: Gallery Brando-Graca.
Sense and sensibility. Sao Paulo, BR. (Exh. Cat).
Chemins. (25 August – 25 September). Liège, BE: Nadja Vilenne.
Brussels South Airport. (20 May – 30 June). Vienna, AT: Galerie Krinzinger. (Exh. Cat).
Papiers divers et dérivés. (10 December 2004 – 30 January 2005). Liège, BE: Galerie Nadja Vilenne.
Amicalement vôtre. In: Lille 2004. (6 March – 24 May). Tourcoing, FR: Musée des Beaux-Arts. (Exh. Cat).
Solar room. With Olivier Foulon, Aglaia Konrad & Joelle Tuerlinckx. In: ARCO International Contemporary Art Fair. (12 – 16 February). Madrid, ES.
Once upon a time. (20 December 2003 – 29 February 2004). Antwerp, BE: MuHKA.
Sense & nonsense. (12 September – 26 October). London, GB: Danielle Arnaud.
Contour. (15 August – 12 September). Mechelen, BE.
Exhumed. (11 July – 31 August). London, GB: Danielle Arnaud, London, GB: Museum of Garden History. (Exh. Cat).
Prix de la jeune peinture Belge/Prijs jonge Belgische schilderkunst. (25 June – 7 September). Brussels, BE: Palais des Beaux-Arts/ Paleis voor Schone Kunsten.
Attachment+. Bruges, BE: European Cultural Capital 2002. (Exh. Cat).
Contemporary art from Portugal. Frankfurt, DE: European Central Bank. (Exh. Cat).
Irish festival. Aalst, BE.
SPRING. Liège, BE: Galerie Nadja Vilenne .
Biënnale van Leuven. Louvain, BE. (Exh. Cat).
Wir sind die Ander(en). Herford, DE. (Exh. Cat).
Yellow. Geel, BE. (Exh. Cat).
Portable stones. (65 min., colour, video). Brussels, BE: Argos.
Wideawake. (25 min., colour, video). Brussels, BE: Argos.
Wideawake. (7 March). Dublin, IE: Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA).
Loosing words. In: De avonden van het NICC/Les soirées du NICC. Brussels, BE: Café Greenwich.
Five years S.M.A.K. Performed by Caroline Donnelly. Ghent, BE: Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst (S.M.A.K.).