Silent Apocalypse, 1999 - 2000
paper, wooden box/table, brass discs, papier mache bowls 300 x 500 x 40 cm
Subtitled Aljama Veritas, the gathering of truth. This work is an open-ended enquiry into faith systems and the abuse of power. The ethos of the work is not didactic but instead, endeavours to generate a discourse around the issues /concerns.
The word 'aljama' is from the standard Jewish encyclopaedia, it refers its origin and meaning as Arabic; the gathering term applied to Christian Spain and Sicily, to the community of Jews (and Moslems), sometimes also to the Jewish quarter. The latter part of the term Veritas comes from the Latin word for truth.
I chose to use this title specifically, because it encompasses the notion of a ghetto of differing religious/cultural belief systems. The word truth is referenced in an ironic sense. I used the visual language of religious ritual to critique the notion of faith. The piece is made primarily in black and white, as it is concerned with the tendency in many cultures to approach others perspectives in black and white and either - or terms. This takes place on both a rational and emotional level. It has resonances in the individual’s formative development as well as in national and international socio-political relations.
paper, wooden box/table, brass discs, papier mache bowls 300 x 500 x 40 cm
Subtitled Aljama Veritas, the gathering of truth. This work is an open-ended enquiry into faith systems and the abuse of power. The ethos of the work is not didactic but instead, endeavours to generate a discourse around the issues /concerns.
The word 'aljama' is from the standard Jewish encyclopaedia, it refers its origin and meaning as Arabic; the gathering term applied to Christian Spain and Sicily, to the community of Jews (and Moslems), sometimes also to the Jewish quarter. The latter part of the term Veritas comes from the Latin word for truth.
I chose to use this title specifically, because it encompasses the notion of a ghetto of differing religious/cultural belief systems. The word truth is referenced in an ironic sense. I used the visual language of religious ritual to critique the notion of faith. The piece is made primarily in black and white, as it is concerned with the tendency in many cultures to approach others perspectives in black and white and either - or terms. This takes place on both a rational and emotional level. It has resonances in the individual’s formative development as well as in national and international socio-political relations.
In terms of visual research the work has many influences amongst them, my own Irish Catholicism as well as the Beatus Manuscripts.
http://www.moleiro.com/illuminated-manuscripts.php?p=eato/en
These early medieval illuminated manuscripts from Catalonia, N.W, Spain, I encountered while I was undertaking my Masters in Barcelona. These are fantastically highly animated illuminated texts that possess a depiction of imagined narrative in symbolically designed positive and negative spaces, in relation to the truth as they saw it. Reflected in the work, additionally, is a diverse range of influences, Moorish, northern and southern European the overall thrust of the works conceived by a multiplicity of authors/artists is of an apocryphal nature.