'Pretty Ugly'

Today I visited Limerick Printmakers Studio & Gallery to see Emilie Doyle's print exhibition 'Pretty Ugly'. I found it very impressive and I learnt a lot about print making by going on the opening night. Each year Limerick Printmakers award a BA Degree Graduate from the Printmaking Department at Limerick School of Art and Design a Bursary Award in the form of a year’s membership and a solo exhibition at the end of that year. Emilie is the Bursary Award Winner of 2011/2012.

Doyle’s work is a study of the dull and unsightly views which characterise daily life. Her works consist of monographs, wire sculptures but mainly consists of collographs, the gestural and textural marks that are achieved through this discipline creating a free and flowing quality in the prints that contrast interestingly with the stark hardness of her subjects in reality. She gets inspiration from the contrast between the initial dislike such images cause and the subsequent visual fascination that deeper study can instill. The artist wishes to challenge acknowledged perceptions of beauty by manipulating these everyday scenes into something people would find worth looking at.
The artist’s work is displayed in an unpretentious manner. Her pieces seemed to be mounted on torn or corrugated cardboard or paper. From what I could see, there was an incomplete quality to Doyle’s work that you would either like or hate. I liked this element of her exhibition; it added a sort of quirkiness to it. There is a certain delicacy present in her work. She depicts dark, almost sinister, images in the likes of ‘Dead Crow’, ‘Street’ and ‘Walking the Land’ but somehow manages to give them a faint touch of beauty. The title of Doyle’s exhibition ‘Pretty Ugly’ therefore perfectly describes her work in two words.
My favourite works were surprisingly the smaller ones. I felt they had more of an impact on me, against the white background they really stood out. One of my favourite works is ‘The Yellow Door’simply because I love the perspective and colour contrast of the yellow door against the dull background.

'The Yellow Door'

'Walking The Land'

'The Turquoise Door'