2 STudios : one gallery

First opened to the public on Culture Night, September 23rd, 2022. 2 STUDIOS : ONE GALLERY is very much a concept in progress.

ARTISTS

We, Michael Quane RHA and Johanna Connor artist , have been preparing this venue over the last few years with the goal of adding it to the National arts landscape in some way that contributes to the visibility of arts practice within the community.  We hope to maintain a level of access to an interested and curious public through the 2 STUDIOS : ONE GALLERY venue in Coachford, Co. Cork.

2 STONES : ONE EARTH , I’m told by Johanna, is a phrase that quantitatively points us in the direction of what it is that makes a fertile patch of ground and simultaneously the material to enclose it. Like a recipe, it tells us the richness of the land or it’s wealth of stone. The more stone, the smaller the fields, the taller the walls and the less fertile the land. A mathematicians delight for simple equations.

The phrase, she’s told, comes from Upstate New York and is a formula for the cultivation of the land by the early European immigrants eking out patches of fertile ground.

In Ireland it would have had a stark relevance throughout the island. The rockier land in the West could be 7 STONES to ONE EARTH whereas in the Golden Vale the land could’ve been in the earliest of times 1 STONE to TWENTY EARTH. It is from this idea of cultivation and fertility that the name 2 STUDIOS : ONE GALLERY comes.

Perhaps the simplest of ratios for a fertile creative ground.

Text by Michael Quane RHA 2022.