‘Yellow Amber Grey Amber’ at Rua Red

By Mary Dennehy

AFTER a series of national and international exhibitions, artist Micheal John Whelan has brought his work back to his home city and is staging a solo exhibition in the Rua Red county arts centre in Tallaght.

Living between Dublin and Berlin, Whelan, who works predominately with video and photography, has brought his solo exhibition ‘Yellow Amber Grey Amber’ to the local arts centre – alongside a specially commissioned piece of video work.

Traditionally, Whelan investigates the history and future of science while tapping into landscapes and the effects humanity has on the environment.

Recent projects have investigated locations with strong historical and contemporary resonance, including the location in Ireland where the last Irish wolf was killed in 1786 and an ongoing project at the Svalbard global seed vault in Norway.

Whelan’s latest exhibition in Rua Red is a double screen video projection, which taps into his interest of landscaped and the mystery around what may happen to it in the future.

Part of the film sees the moving of the camera across a Norwegian landscape in search of an albino whale reported to have been spotted in this area, with Whelan using this among a number of other images to examine a recent spike in albinism in the natural world – and asking whether this is natural or a result of human interaction on landscape.

‘Yellow Amber Grey Amber’ will run in Rua Red until August 20. Visit www.ruared.ie for more.