Make Ready

‘Make Ready’ features new works from emerging artists Neil Dunne and Jordan McQuaid.

The title ‘Make Ready’ is a direct reference to the ‘test print’- a print made on disposable paper prior to the final print but also embodies the various processes in silkscreen printing such as; colour saturation, registration, test printing and proofing. It also acts as a metaphor for the process of artistic creation and exhibition making.

Both Dunne and McQuaid are formally educated in fine art printmaking, which has given them a platform to experiment with all aspects of silkscreen – teasing out its contextual placement within their own practices, and the wider cultural understanding of the printed form.

Contrary to the traditional use of silkscreen printing as a vehicle to present information, Jordan McQuaid’s practice is used as a means of information dilution, rather than that of distribution. His work highlights the potential pitfalls of how we, as members of an increasingly intensive visual culture; perceive, appropriate and distort the imagery, which is forced into our peripheries by popular and mass media. Images of culturally relevant historical objects are present in the printed artworks but play a consciously secondary role. The multiplication and distribution has rendered the importance of the historical context of the objects being lost. Instead meaningless motifs such as images from colouring books and shapes derived from play-doh dominate the works. Jordan McQuaid is a recent graduate of fine art print at NCAD, Dublin and has been awarded the Black Church Undergraduate Award and the Zygote Press Fellowship, Ohio US. He has exhibited in notable exhibitions in the Saatchi Gallery, London, RHA Dublin and the Parliament Buildings, Belfast. His work is in private collections, the OPW and The royal College of Surgeons, Dublin.

Similarly the process of silkscreen printing forms the basis for many of Neil Dunne’s pieces. In 2017 he completed an MFA in NCAD having received an NCAD Post Graduate scholarship. In this new body of work he explores the combination of paint and print; the capacity of both mediums and the resulting interplay. Dunne draws influence from the process heavy medium of silkscreen and amalgamates the technique with paint to deliver a collage of texture, form and imagery. Urban space is an intrinsic part of his work replicating found imagery, structure and colour. As Dunne explains “Architecture forms an identity. It creates places, spaces of social and cultural importance, encapsulating nostalgia, emotion and personal experience.”

Dunne’s works has been acquired by various collections including the OPW, HKOP, Hong Kong and many private collections. He has completed residencies in St. Patrick’s Hospital, and the Kennedy Wilson Clancy Barracks Studio Residency. He has shown in numerous exhibitions including Dublin, Sligo, Glasgow, Hong Kong and New York.