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Sharyn Sloan, a Newry-based artist, is showcasing her latest body of work in a solo exhibition titled 'EMERGENCE' at the Newry City Library gallery. The exhibition, featuring 18 new abstract paintings, opened on Monday with an official public launch event today Thursday, May 23rd from 5:00 PM to 7:30 PM. The show will run until June 9th alongside the Here and Now Festival from Newry U3A
A Culmination of Artistic Evolution
'EMERGENCE' represents a culmination of Sloan's continued artistic evolution, reflecting her intuitive and improvisational approach to painting. The exhibition showcases acrylics, collages, and mixed media works, where individual brushstrokes, marks, colors, and shapes interact and combine unexpectedly, giving rise to larger compositions and visual patterns that transcend the individual elements.
Inspiration and Influences
Sloan's paintings are inspired by her life experiences, travel, poetry, music, emotions, and her fascination with maps and aerial landscapes. Her works incorporate lines, marks, shapes, numbers, graphs, and formulas, reflecting her constant battle for balance with Type 1 diabetes. The multi-layered paintings allow glimpses of previous layers to show through, with words, shapes, and colors disguised and warped by overpainting, rewarding viewers with unexpected surprises as they engage with the work.
An Emergent Phenomenon
Sloan sees her art as an emergent phenomenon, where her intentions, materials, and spontaneous creative impulses dynamically interplay, resulting in unforeseen forms and expressions that evoke moods, emotions, or conceptual ideas greater than the sum of their parts.
About the Artist
A Newry native, Sharyn Sloan holds an arts degree in Textiles & Fashion from Ulster University. She established her textile company in 1992 and ran this business for 14 years before beginning her career as an art facilitator in the community. Sloan has worked as an art facilitator throughout the care sector, as well as in schools and corporates, and is a Project Artist with Arts Care. She has continued to create art and has sold her work to private collections locally and abroad. 'EMERGENCE' is an accumulation of six months of work.
Here and Now Festival
Celebrating Older Artists at the 'HERE AND NOW' Festival Sharyn Sloan, a project artist with Arts Care, is thrilled to present her solo exhibition EMERGENCE alongside the remarkable work facilitated by the U3A Newry group at the 'HERE AND NOW Arts, Health & Well-being Festival For Older People 2023/24'.
The festival's theme, 'You're a Diamond,' celebrated the strength, beauty, and resilience of older individuals, acknowledging their challenges while encouraging them to shine. The exhibition features the stunning needle punch art created by Tracey Osmond, Rita Morgan, Mary Sands, Teresa Mc Kay, Philomena Kavanagh, and Margaret Convery from the U3A Newry group, which was previously showcased at the Artscare Gallery in Connswater, Belfast. Under the guidance of Sharyn Sloan, the U3A Newry group have created an impressive collection of 14 needle punch artworks, a remarkable achievement for individuals with no prior experience in the artistry.
Sloan expressed her admiration for the group, stating, "These fantastic women worked extremely hard and overcame numerous challenges in learning this new skill. They laughed, shouted in frustration, and supported each other in equal measures. It was a pleasure to work with them."
