Sidelong Glances: An Oblique Look at the Sea Exhibition

 

Sidelong Glances: An Oblique Look at the Sea

Curated by Catherine Bowe

 

Featuring work by Orla Barry, Herman Braun-Vega, Gary Coyle, Ann Hamilton, Ailbhe Ní Bhriain, Kathy Prendergast, and Marisa Rappard.

 

13th October – 21st November, 2025

Wexford County Council, Carricklawn Wexford, Y35 WY93

 

Opening Event: Friday 10th October, 6pm

All welcome to attend. Food and wine served.

 

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The Arts Office of Wexford County Council, in partnership with Wexford Arts Centre, is pleased to present a group exhibition titled Sidelong Glances: An Oblique Look at the Sea. The exhibition features work from IMMA’s National Collection and invited Irish and international artists, including Orla Barry, Herman Braun-Vega, Gary Coyle, Ann Hamilton, Ailbhe Ní Bhriain, Kathy Prendergast, and Marisa Rappard.

The exhibition takes its inspiration from a poem written by Marianne Moore in 1921 titled "The Grave." The poem stems from Moore's personal experience of observing the sea with her mother, where her brother’s intrusion on their view inspired reflections on the human tendency to focus on the immediate rather than the larger picture:

 

“Man, looking into the sea—

taking the view from those who have as much right to it as you have it to yourself—

it is human nature to stand in the middle of a thing

but you cannot stand in the middle of this.”

 

Sidelong Glances: An Oblique Look at the Sea extends Moore’s examination of the sea as a powerful, indifferent force, a place of both beauty and death, and interprets it as a critique of human ambition and its impact on the natural world, which can be linked to colonial attitudes towards expansion. The poem's central image of the sea as a "well excavated grave" suggests that human attempts to dominate and control nature are ultimately futile, a perspective that resonates with critiques of colonialism's impact on lands and societies.

 

All the works in the exhibition cast a sidelong view at these ideas. Herman Braun-Vega’s interpretation of Georges de La Tour’s The Card Sharp with the Ace of Diamonds recontextualizes themes of deception, power, and social inequality. Braun-Vega, known for fusing classical European art with Latin American and postcolonial commentary, unearths social and political “intrusions’ – hidden manipulations that underpin societal systems, often framed within a postcolonial critique.

Ailbhe Ní Bhriain’s large-scale Jacquard tapestries echo Braun-Vega’s themes, and despite their differences, the works intersect meaningfully around the idea of intrusion as a critical lens: how external or hidden forces impact environments, whether cultural, political, or historical. The tapestries, translated to Jacquard from loose digital collage, depict excavated landscapes populated by a cast of extinct or endangered animals.

The sea in Moore’s poem is not just a physical force but a symbolic presence that reflects human psychology, especially the ego’s tension between control and humility. The poem draws attention to how we perceive the sea and, by extension, nature, through our own needs, rather than accepting it on its own terms. This reveals the subjectivity of perception.  The line “The sea is a collector, quick to return a rapacious look” connects perception with consequence. The act of looking, of perceiving with an agenda/ego, is met with a mirrored, possibly violent response.

Filament II by the artist Ann Hamilton is a sculpture with blurred boundaries. The spinning curtain of distressed organza envelopes the viewer but is transparent, so a shadowy silhouette is still visible to others standing outside. Hamilton often explores the threshold between the visible and invisible, and, in Filament II, the barely-there elements highlight how much of what we perceive exists on the edges of attention. This reflects ideas about the limitations of perception, the selectivity of attention, and how we build our internal reality.

 

Sidelong Glances: An Oblique Look at the Sea will be situated in the County Buildings and run from Monday, 13th October, to Friday, 21st November, 2025.

Wexford County Council’s temporary exhibition programme is delivered in partnership with Wexford Arts Centre, with the support of the Arts Council.

 

Wexford County Council and Wexford Arts Centre would like to thank the Irish Museum of Modern Art, the Kerlin Gallery, and the Kevin Kavanagh Gallery for their support with this exhibition.

 

 

IMAGE CREDITS

Herman Braun-Vega, Norte, o Sur, o Este, u Oeste, 1982, lithograph on paper, 65 x 85cm, IMMA National Collection

 

For further information on the exhibition, please contact Una Cahill, Assistant Arts Officer, The Arts Department, Wexford County Council, Carricklawn, Wexford, Y35 WY93, on +353 (0)53 9196369 or email una.cahill@wexfordcoco.ie.

 

Wexford County Council’s opening hours are Monday to Friday from 9am-5pm.