Artists praised for their work
Pollagh Trail Exhibition in Birdhill featuring 50 paintings ends today
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Niamh Burke, Ballinahinch after receiving the award for Under 12 years, with Melissa Ryan and Tricia Taylor Thompson, judge.Image 2 of 4
Young artists from Birdhill National School, winners of the group award in the art exhibition for national schools.Image 3 of 4
Keeva O’Shea, Birdhill after receiving the award for Art 12-18 years for her entry in the Birdhill Art Exhibition.Image 4 of 4
Lucy Creagh, Niamh Burke, Darragh Harrington, Kate Stritch and Eile Griffin after receiving their awards for paintings at the Pollagh’s Art Exhibition.Professional, emerging and first time artists were among the participants at the Pollagh Trail Exhibition which is now believed to be the first of its kind ever staged in the country.
The exhibition of 50 paintings, each mounted on posts along the tranquil Pollagh Road beside the village of Birdhill, officially closes on this (Wednesday) evening, have been viewed by hundred of admirers over the past month.
Trish Taylor Thompson, Eric Baczkowski, and Aidan Lynch had the challenging task of selecting the winners in the six categories catering for both individual and group entries.
On the last weekend of the exhibition, local artist, Melissa Ryan, who who came up with the idea for the format of the exhibition, welcomed the artists and members of the community to a gathering at the Community Park, Birdhill to celebrate the success of the event.
“Basically I want to thank everyone for coming. It’s amazing to see all these lovely people present and it is wonderful to have a lovely fine evening to celebrate such an amazing achievement by the community,” she said.
“We have all been trust into the event with the pandemic and everyone is in a place that is quite unusual for them. I am really delighted that we were able to do something positive and it has been an amazing success beyond our expectations,” she added.
“It was just an idea that has evolved into something really, really special and none of this could have been achieved without you. I want to thank everyone who has been supportive throughout thus project.”
Melissa said that everyone she contacted in bringing the exhibition to fruition had been very supportive, the combined result of which made a big contribution to ensuring its success.
Because of events which had not gone ahead because of Covid-19 there was some funding available from Creative Ireland for which they were very grateful, in addition to the support of Birdhill Tidy Village Committee and the local community, without which it would not have been possible.
She was also grateful for the support of Applegreen, SuperValu (Killaloe) and Siobhan Larkin (Supermarket) and Ann O’Brien for their support.
“The most important people I would like to thank are the artists. Without you we would not have an exhibition. It was an amazing experience to work with you.
“We had to limit the exhibition to 50 paintings and some people told me that I’d be lucky to get 20 but I have to say that we were very lucky because we fielded 50 and could have done a lot more, so it was great to see everyone connect and amazing to see the age gap between the entrants,” she said.A full list of category winners will appear in next week’s issue.