PEN PALS POWER EXTREME !!!!

5 DAYS TO GO

Only a few days to go until the opening night for the Pen Pal Pears show. So what is this Pen Pal nonsense you so brashly speak of with your fancy pants arty jibber jabber??? Well I will tell thee. 

A few months back we asked artists of all artistic backgrounds to send us examples of their work. We chose 60 artists out of a near 200 and we spent a few nights looking closely at all the artists work. We then paired off the artists into 30 pairs and wrote a letter to each. In this letter was the postal address of their new Pen Pal Pear. 

We asked the artists to make contact with their Pen Pal and create something that will be exhibited in the gallery as a large group show. The artists were asked not to Google or email each other. We begged them not to Facebook their Pen Pal or meet them face to face. We only wanted them to contact each other using the postal system and eventually when the are finished their collaboration they meet face to face on the opening night of the show which is this coming Friday the 6th of August. 

Who doesn't like getting post? Awwwwwww it's one of those lovely little things in life that never grows old. But due to our increasing laziness and obsession with everything online we forget the good old days and we give a big MEH! to romance and letter writing. My brother Dave still writes home and I think it's so admirable and nice in today's world. When you get a hand written letter you get a sense of the process that went into putting it all together. Its all the fine details of putting the paper down, sitting at your desk or kitchen table, writing away taking the time to seal and send. Perfect! You can see how I'm totally goin for an An Post Oscar .

Well we thought how great would it be if we could ask artists to just write a letter to someone they don't know but knowing they share the same interest and have to work towards something together. We knew from the start that there would be problems and artists would drop out and people would panic and get frustrated and rush things and others would take it in their stride and some would forget and some wouldn't give a shit and some would sneak an email or even meet their artist Pen Pal. We wanted all of this to happen because ever moment was being recorded through the letters and through the creation of each artwork. 

The show itself will be something very different. The finished art works will be displayed but also all of the letters, packages, emails, notes, post-it's from all the artists so the viewer can see all every bit of creation from start to finish. We don't want to just hang all the pieces on the wall n some boring manner so we are working hard to make the display of the work as interesting as the work itself.  There are friendships formed and artists pals made for life, some of the artists met up in other countries, some never made it past the first letter, some fell out but its all so damn interesting! 

So next Friday please come and join us and be apart of what will be a very different and unique event. Meet the artists and have a drink with us. We hope to have some live music and all our visitors make their own letter to be sent to someone the may know or not know.  

Friday 6h of August at 8.00pm 

All Welcome!