Paola Catizone

Lights from Paola Catizone on Vimeo.

Classes in Oscailt, Pembroke St, are on going every Tuesday at 6 pm.with the next course starting on the 20th of September. A typical class will include a gentle warm up session, a good stretch and some deep relaxation. Text/call me at 0863596824 for bookings or contact Oscailt.

Mondays Yoga Classes

collaborative piece

In 2008, artist/facilitator Paola Catizone made an application to the Irish Museum of Modern Art, requesting that WALK service users be accepted to participate in the “Focus on..” program, one of the community and education programs run by IMMA.

The application was successful and Paola and the artists from WALK attended the program for six consecutive weeks, free of charge, in IMMA.

This entailed a weekly session involving tours of the gardens, grounds and art exhibitions by specialised Museum staff,and, after lunch, work in studio 10, a facility for selected art groups.

The studio work was led by Stephanie Joy, a member of IMMA ‘s artists panel, with the support of Mediator and artist Stephen Taylor.

During the six sessions, the group also collaborated with artists in residence in IMMA, producing this piece as a response to their experiences to the art viewed and to the history of the building itself.

This was an uplifting, informative and rewarding experience for the group, who availed of skills and facilities of the highest standard in the field of international contemporary art. Their memories are still fresh and fond and we hope to visit IMMA again soon.

This piece will be shown at our collaborative art show in the near future.

Italian /Spanish artist, born in 1960 in Rome , pursued early studies in Rome and Gran Canaria.

Moved to Dublin in 1985 where she had her three children. Exploring the field of body awareness, dance, yoga and movement as well as Buddhist meditation, for thirty years, teaching in diverse contexts such as prisons, addiction clinics, teacher training courses and courses for people with chronic illness .

Practising as a self taught visual artist for the last fifteen years. Worked with eleven women artists in Bridge St Studios in Dundalk from 2001 to 2005 and held many group exhibitions there. Solo exhibitions include: Ardgillan Castle in 2004, “Mudra”Italian Cultural Institute in 2007, Juice cafe , ( As a funding event for Care Local) in 2008, The Shed and Bewleys cafe, Dublin, showing projected drawings for a performance on Dante’s Divine Comedy. This show is also being shown currently in Italy in Universities and Theatres. Solo Exhibition at the Basement Gallery in Dundalk in 2008 . Film selected at the Gay Pride film festival in 2009. Recently exhibited her work at “Made on Monday”, ( November 20010) an exhibition at the Complex, in Smithfield, Dublin, showing the work of more than thirty Dublin contemporary artists.

Work has been purchased by Dundalk Institute of Technology, commissioned by Lough Derg religious Centre and by many private collectors. Paintings on permanent display at Dundalk train station and DKIT library.

Returned to education as a mature student in 2008 and now attending third year course in painting in NCAD.

Currently exploring links between painting and performance art and approaching painting as a performative act in a series of events in a new Dublin venue. Considering both performance and installation art and painting as practices of awakening.

Anna Livia Plurabelle (Heart of water)

I made Annalivia in 2001, just before moving with my family to Dundalk, where I lived for four years.

I had been finding the aggressive attitude of the celtic tiger difficult to live with. The river Liffey, seemed to represent the only reminder of a slower, more organic and authentic identity for the city. The river symbolized the heart of Dublin, and it managed to remain calm, and real, if sullied by pollution, during the fast frenzy of the tiger. The house where I lived with my children at the time was sold from under our feet, and, I was considering a move away from Dublin. Not a very practical decision then to make a very large, three dimensional painting. I was reading and loving Joyce’s Ulisses, and I was participating in a project called the “Dublin Walking Experience” , which involved learning the history of Dublin by participating in talks, discussions and walks. The river was the centre of the city in its earliest times, and central to all its commercial activities. We performed a song for Anna Livia on the Millenium Bridge and my painting was shown in the Temple bar galleries. The following year, Anna Livia was shown on the window of the Davies gallery in Caple Street as part of the Bloomsday celebration. She was then stored by Stan Kennedy in Focus Point, as a homeless Dublin lass, until I could retrieve her and bring her to DKIT.

Anna Livia is made with Plaster of Paris bands, which I moulded over synthetic clay, peeled off and attached to the board. I then painted it in Acrylic and enamel and metal paint. She is depicted in a spinning motion which is nearly impossible to physically achieve and which represents the fluidity of both water, and of the under current of though, emotion and dreams of the people inhabiting the city. This current moves below the surface of financial realities and is more constant and real than them.

The Mermaids

I made this piece in 2002, shortly after moving to Dundalk. The town allowed a relaxed pace of life which suited the making of art. I was reading a book called “Sexual Personae”, by Camille Paglia. Paglia is a vibrant writer on culture and gender, and in this book she examined the Western Canon. In the chapter on The Odissey, Paglia focused on the image of three mermaids, monstruous beings of the cthonic sea, watery meneads, ready to administer dismemberment onto their victims.

Paglia’s sea represents the chtonic unconscious, what’s dark and murky, slimy and dangerous, and ultimately death. The mermaids are the antithesis of the cool light of rationality, representing body and psyche at their murkiest. I had incurred a physical injury that was quite painful and making this piece allowed me to engage that experience and give it some meaning. The scale of the piece gave the working practice a physical dimension, bringing a performative aspect to the work which was the first glimpse of my current interest in performance and installation.

I cast my own body in plaster of paris, which I then attached to the board and painted in acrylic paint, with the last layer painted in oils. The bones and other objects attached were collected from local beaches. The Three women/animals are a creature of the sea, one of the air and one of the earth, alluding to the elemental quality of the image. Their lips are spelling the sillable AUM, the well known Sanscrit mantra of “OM”, or Maha Mantra, which in Hinduism is believed to be the sound of the Cosmos.

Displayed on loan at DKIT , Dundalk

Paola’s Laban dance performance opened the exhibition of Bridget McClean’s textile art in Provost House, Trinity College Dublin in 2006. To find out more about Laban, visit Laban.org. Posted below is the full performance by Paola Catizone. Please leave comments/questions. Read more…