The Party's Over

Ringing in the season of cracker crowns, colourful balloons and party favours, the sculptures in Doireann Gillan's solo exhibition resemble both symbols of joy and excitement as harbingers of loneliness and nostalgia.

Squeezed, stretched and bent out of shape, discarded industrial materials and soft spheres defy their prescribed functions as negative space and shadows compete with the objects they depend on. Oscillating between rage, restraint and revelry their behaviour and appearance challenge historically gendered attributes.

Gillan's installations act as metaphors for the tension between a desire for happiness and the collapse of the social structures necessary to meet this -for the unachievable aspirations in an era of heightened political and economic precarity.

The Party's Over is a playful provocation to take risks and bring about change.