Saturday June 3rd 2021.

A long way back in the summer of 2019, Artist Heidi Wickham won the Hamilton Gallery / Cairde Visual prize. The opportunity of a solo exhibition that flowed from that award was initially scheduled to take place in 2020, but as we all understand, global events intervened in that arrangement.

It is with the greatest of pleasure that Hamilton Gallery re-opens to the public today, Saturday June 5th, with Inside The Circle - Exploring Cold Spaces by Heidi Wickham. We are delighted to have such a wonderful exhibition in place to welcome everyone back into our public gallery space that has been quiet for so long. The same reopening’s - reawakening’s even - of public art spaces will be taking place in galleries across the country this weekend and in the coming weeks.

There’s possibly no more ideally themed an exhibition than Heidi’s, to gradually re-introduce people to our public art space. As the CAIRDE Sligo Arts Festival Director Tara McGowan, writes in her introduction to the exhibition below “…for an exhibition that is so multi-faceted; the feeling here is very much one of quiet meditation.”

We hope visitors to the gallery will enjoy this opportunity to step anew into that world of quiet meditation and engagement with art, via the inspirational art works Heidi has created for this exhibition. - Martina Hamilton

Covid19 restrictions do not permit indoor public gatherings. Accordingly what follows is the address by Tara McGowan, Director, Cairde Sligo Arts Festival written for the launch of Heidi Wickham’s exhibition

Introduction to Heidi Wickham’s Exhibition Inside The Circle - Exploring Cold Spaces by CAIRDE Sligo Arts Festival Director Tara McGowan

In walking around Heidi’s exhibition, Into the Circle – Exploring Cold Spaces, I feel like I have been transported - literally moved into a completely different world than the one I had been inhabiting just moments before. It feels like an invitation to play, to explore, to take time out, to come on an adventure. I feel in equal measures giddy euphoria and restorative calm.

 I first lay my eyes on ‘Bears & Dogs’ and beside it ‘Seal Pup’. I love the imaginative use of found objects in art – the possibilities of something new or a new idea which can emerge from something that someone else has deemed to throw away or discard. The bears and dogs are crossing a rusty old bridge. What journey are they on? What brings them together? The wood which seems to be holding the decrepit bridge together itself looks like an ancient seal or maybe a whale or perhaps some pre-historic sea creature whose job it has been to keep this bridge aloft. The journey seems at once to be an important odyssey, a crossing from one world to another and at the same time a simple afternoon jaunt between unusual friends.

The seal pup, a mass of blubber; clumsy and awkward-looking on land. Its’ simple and naive form hiding its primitive features.  Heidi tells me that it’s made from rubbish collected on beach walks;   a bundle of plastic bottles formed and held together with scrim.

 Next up is the series of ‘Inuit Face’ portraits, charcoal on wood; close up expressive portraits, somewhat intense. This Inuit tribe have been invited to witness the representation of their part of the world here in our little corner of the world. It really does feel like they are in the room.

Heidi says for this exhibition she has cherry picked some of her favourite pieces from the extreme north of the world; the people, the animals, the artefacts, the sounds. In so doing she is also sharing with us the multidisciplinary nature of her work. Known perhaps largely for her incredibly intuitive, deeply empathic and beautifully drawn charcoal & pastel representations of animals – also featured here with her Snow Bunnies and Bears; Heidi was first and foremost after graduating a sculptor. Following this she spent some time on life drawing. Many people will also be familiar with Heidi’s Toxic Dogs, Wasteland Group – a performance troop who have travelled to Body and Soul, Electric Picnic and more where costumes, head pieces, props and even vehicles are made from recycled materials.

 All of these aspects and more come into play in this exhibition - and yet for an exhibition that is so multi-faceted; the feeling here is very much one of quiet meditation. 

 The Shaman’s Garland, made completely from found and natural materials and Moon over Fish both look like an invitation to a tribal ritual; something which might form an integral part of a collective gathering.

In amongst playful caribou pieces reminiscent of ancient cave drawings, or a primitive whale etching,  we have the polar phone - an invitation to listen to a group of polar bears using an old fashioned black telephone on Icelandic fleece and archival recordings of ice bears. It can remind us of how connected we actually are – out of sight, needn’t be out of mind.

It seems playful but it’s also unusual for the bears to be crying out in this way – a cry for help perhaps? This exhibition certainly touches on environmental concerns but is far from didactic or preachy; it’s a natural, thoughtful consideration and musing; an homage to a world which obviously holds much fascination for the artist. An invitation to step out of your own world and glimpse another.  

 Heidi Wickham was the recipient of the Hamilton Gallery Award at Cairde Visual in 2019 and Into the Circle – Exploring Cold Spaces is the result of this award. I asked Heidi what receiving the award has meant to her. She spoke of being both delighted and gobsmacked; the importance as you spend years building and developing your career as an artist to feel this sense of validation and how much more meaningful it was that the award was for a solo exhibition in her home town. She spoke of the sense of pride she feels to be part of the creative tribe which makes Sligo what it is today and to be in The Hamilton Gallery which has over time developed an exquisite space for artists to share their work with the public.

Last week when I stepped inside a gallery for the first time in 15 months it was a truly joyous occasion and a privilege to wander around this richly textured, diverse exhibition – so expertly hung and displayed by the gallery. The exhibition will run until July 31st and I really recommend that people take the time out of their daily lives to visit the far north right here in the centre of Sligo town.

 Cairde Sligo Arts Festival is grateful to Martina Hamilton and her wonderful team at Hamilton Gallery for their ever collaborative spirit and for creating and sharing this wonderful space with us.  And to Heidi, sincere congratulations on winning the Hamilton Gallery Award and thank you for your incredibly tireless, inquisitive creative mind and for this invitation to take time out, to lose oneself. - Tara McGowan