ANTHROPOMORPHIA

An exhibition of works by

Mel French and Celine Sheridan

Exhibition Run: 10 June - 23 June

Preview 09 June 6pm - 8pm

Gallery Opening Hours: Monday - Friday 10am - 5pm, Saturday 12pm - 5pm

Anthropomorphia a two-site Dublin exhibition by multidisciplinary Visual Artists Mel French and Celine Sheridan. The Complex Gallery, curated by Mark O’Gorman, and the Zoological Museum in Trinity College are exhibiting work that stems from a collaborative research engagement within the fields of Zoology and Psychology. Both French and Sheridan’s artworks reflects on and engages with the psychosomatic of both human and animal. 

The work includes drawings, sculptures and multimedia work, influenced by engagement with academics from both the Zoological Department TCD, Dublin Zoo, a discussion with Zoologist and Author Desmond Morris and zoological and psychological writings including that of Lucy Cooke and Susie Orbach.

‘Through their multi-disciplinary practices (sculpture, installation, video-film, drawing, printmaking, photography, painting) they investigate societal attitudes to the body, to motherhood, to intimacy, to human dominance in a once shared animal world, boldly interrogating ambivalences in that history and how it is laden with psychological pitfalls not least taboos around the body itself and the paucity of our language to discuss it. They ask us to look again at old arguments about nature and nurture, about genetic inheritance and environmental influences, insisting as Mel expresses it that ‘sexual selection and adaptation are influencial fields of research’. Whether their approach is celebratory and tender or concerned with dysfunction, she and Celine strive to mitigate otherness and to initiate discussion.’ Catherine Marshall, January 2023

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Celine Sheridan is a multi-disciplinary Irish Visual Artist. She is a graduate of the MA in Visual Art Practices (MAVIS) from IADT, Dublin and a Degree in Fine Art, Limerick School of Art &Design. She was awarded the inaugural Platform31 for Westmeath in 2021 and the Arts Council Agility Award 2021. She is a recipient of a Creative Ireland grant 2022.

Past exhibitions include ‘Mammalia & Psyche’, Limerick City Gallery of Art 2023 curated by Catherine Marshall; ‘PlayRoom’, Roscommon Arts Centre Sept 22, curated by Naomi Draper; ‘We Are Fetishists’ curated by James Merrigan, Garter Lane Waterford 2022; “Hiatus”, 126 Galway 2019; “Nasty Women”, Pallas Projects, Dublin 2017; ‘’Nasty Women’ New York, 2017; The Reading Room’, Berlin, June 2010, ‘Labyrinth – Writings & Observations’, 2009 Tumba, Sweden, ‘Drawing Eire’, 2009 Shanghai, China. Her work is included in several collections including the National Collection of Contemporary Drawing, Rua Red Collection, OPW and NIVAL.

Mel French is a multi-disciplinary Visual Artist. She is a Cum Laude Master’s in fine art graduate of The New York Academy of Art, New York, USA and Bachelor of Arts, National College of Art and Design, Dublin, Ireland. Awards include Arts Council of Ireland, Creative Ireland, Westmeath County Council Arts Office and The Irish Concrete Society Award.

Recent exhibitions including, Mammalia and Psyche, Limerick City Gallery of Art 2023 curated by Catherine Marshall, Displacement and Belonging ,Rua Red 2023,Westmeath Artists Award exhibition , Luan Gallery 2022, curated by Sarah Searson, The Courthouse Gallery , curated by Simon Fennesey Corcoran ,CAST sculpture exhibition ,Luan Gallery 2018 curated by Katriona Gillespie and Sculpture 18 ,Fe McWilliam curated by Dr.Rian Coulter.

French’s work has been commissioned by Longford, Cavan and Offaly County Councils, The Department of Education, Justice for Forgotten and purchased for the National Collection of Contemporary Drawing.

Image credit: Celine Sheridan, Wet behind the ears, 2023.

Mel French, If Truth be Told, 2023.

Images courtesy Tom Flanagan.

For further info and images: contact Mark O’Gorman, Visual Arts Manager.

mark.ogorman@thecomplex.ie / 085 1433 858