Interval Two (Dream Pool)
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Interval Two (Dream Pool) marks Ailbhe Ní Bhriain’s first solo exhibition at Kerlin Gallery, Dublin

The visual worlds created by Ní Bhriain are at once precise and enigmatic, drawing the familiar into a register of interruption and disorientation. Three large-scale Jacquard tapestries form the centre of this exhibition. In these intricately woven works, fragments of archival portraits merge with images of underground caves and architectural ruins. The resulting scenes of threshold and collapse are inhabited by thylacines, birds of prey and other unlikely creatures, threading an imagined line between contemporary threats of extinction and ancient narratives of the underworld.

In an abstract counterpart, a series of framed pigment prints depicts the reverse side of early photographic documents. The material conditions of the objects hint here at their stories – revealing the absences of the archive and the un-glimpsed narrative ‘behind’ an image.

Interval Two (Dream Pool) reflects an ongoing body of work, encompassing sculpture, photography and a forthcoming film. At its core is an exploration of dislocation, with historical displacement considered against the spectre of loss that haunts the contemporary imagination.