Caoimhe Kilfeather

Oiled, pigmented paper in shades of blue hangs in loose panels from a metal frame, screening the gallery from the bustle of the cobbled streets outside. The gallery is located in Dublin’s Cultural Quarter, an area thronged with visitors. Instead of competing with the bustle to capture attention, Caoimhe Kilfeather has constructed a calm, quiet enclosure in which lambent light pacifies the senses.

Within this renewed atmosphere are sculptural objects. The Kind Thought That Sent Them There (all works 2014) is a small drop-leaf table, with one leaf hanging down, on which sit four blackened cast-bronze balls, each with a small slot revealing a hollow interior. One leg of the table is supported by a small wedge, drawing attention to a deliberate imperfection. Diagonally opposite, A Shade takes the form of a dark concrete monolith, banded horizontally at its center by a slim brass thread. Both sculptures serve to inflect one’s sense of presence.

Two framed black-and-white photographs, At the End of His Nature I and II, provide the clearest guide to Kilfeather’s intentions. Each shows the view from a room shaded by foliage across a paved courtyard to a doorway beyond. In one image, the glass doors are open; in the other, closed. Kilfeather is utterly sensitive to the nuances of placement in an installation that gently insists on attention, a slower pace, and a greater appreciation for the resonance of objects and of being in space.