Clúdach: Cover

[ View Cover Image]

The rudimentary, yet haunting image on this issue's cover, Carmel Benson's Winter Field, concludes a suite of four cover images in the 2008 volume, executed by contemporary artists associated with the Graphic Studio Gallery of Dublin. Each cover has featured a print that responds to an Irish field.

Carmel Benson was born in Country Wexford in 1960, and now lives and works in the Wicklow Mountains. Educated at University College,Dublin and the Dun Laoghaire College of Art and Design, she has often shown her work at the Royal Hibernian Academy, the Oireachtas exhibition, and in galleries throughout Ireland, as well as in the United Kingdom, Spain, Taiwan, and elsewhere. Her preferred mediums are oil painting and printmaking but—regardless of medium—Benson's subject matter always evokes a childlike, playful sensibility.

Winter Field is taken from a series titled "Childscapes" exhibited at the Graphic Studio Gallery in March, 2008.Measuring 28 cm. x 30 cm., the print's seeming simplicity belies a sophisticated manipulation of design principles. For instance, in rendering the roughly parallel lines of the plowed field, Benson declines to alter size or placement to suggest distance; rather than recede, the vertical lines run directly to the horizon, essentially setting perspective at naught. This forceful rendering of visual experience similarly disables the viewer's likely attempts at interpretation. Where an adult would almost certainly seek to impose a flag-like template onto the image, the reality is that no such construct is pertinent: here, Benson's goal is to render the immediacy of childhood perception. Other of Benson's images from the "Childscapes" exhibition may be viewed at http://www.graphicstudiodublin.com/gsg/exhibitions/2008/03_carmel_benson/.

We thank Carmel Benson for kind permission to present this image to the readers of New Hibernia Review, and also thank Catherine O'Riordain, gallery manager at Graphic Studio Gallery, for her generous assistance.

We encourage our readers who may be visiting Dublin to visit the gallery, which is located in the heart of Dublin's "Cultural Quarter," Temple Bar. Its email is gallery@graphicstudiodublin.com.