ABOUT IT

I think the best way to appreciate a place is to talk with its people, especially in Ireland.

I am a foreigner but I am not a tourist. I study and live in Galway. I did not know Dublin, I wanted to learn more about this city.
The first time I visited Merrion Square, the painters were exhibiting their work. Since then, I have often gone there on Saturdays and Sundays and took photographs of them. I learnt a lot through their paintings and their stories.
After that, I explained this project to a friend who has lived in Dublin. He enjoyed it and commented on the photographs, on the stories and on the people. Everything naturally came back to him. I finally asked two other friends to do the same, they commented on one portrait each. Their personal views and what that brought to them has had an important role in this project.

This project is a combination of people's conversations and points of view, in other words everything I learnt about Dublin.

Pete, Theo and Liam are the painters.
Ruth, Victoria and Raphael commented on the portraits.

Every portrait is composed of photographs I took, a comment as a context written by a friend of mine who lived in Dublin, and a video which gives the real aspect of conversation : an answer.

It is also three people a portrait: a painter, a friend of mine and me.

Within those, we certainly created a portrait of Dublin. From a painter who lives there, people who moved away from it and a foreigner.

I would like to thank the Chester Beatty Library and Pivotal Arts Studio who have worked together to create this group of young curators. As a young curator, I present this project named WET PAINT. I learnt so much and have gained experience which will be invaluable to me in the future. I hope that the Young Curators, Digital Design and the Living Archive will continue.

WET PAINT was produced within Young Curators, Digital Design and the Living Archive project - a pioneering exploration of the growing interplay between curation and new technologies, encouraging emerging young artists to incorporate the digital into their creative practice in addition to accessing museum collections and gallery spaces.
A Pivotal Arts Studio (previously FOMACS) and Chester Beatty Library collaborative learning project, supported by the Arts Council Ireland, Dublin City Council and the Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, with additional support from the Wellcome Trust.