An Leabhair Mor at Riverbank

There has been a steady interest in the An Leabhair Mór exhibition which opened on Friday in the Riverbank Arts Centre in newbridge.



The event, which runs until next Saturday, 15 April, is based around the Leabhar Mòr na Gàidhlig ('The Great Book of Gaelic') project , which has been described as a 21st century ‘Book of Kells’ that brings together the work of more than 200 visual artists, poets and calligraphers from Scotland and Ireland.



Thirty Gaelic poets from Scotland and Ireland were each asked to provide a poem of their own for inclusion in the Leabhar Mòr. They and other writers (including Nobel Prizewinning poet Seamus Heaney and Canadian novelist Alistair MacLeod) also nominated another 70 poems from the canon of Gaelic poetry.



A hundred visual artists from Scotland and Ireland were then commissioned. Each was remitted to create a new artwork inspired by one of the poems. Each of the artworks was created on special handmade paper (38"x22") offering a variety of surfaces, and the artists chose their own media. Ten calligraphers and typographers from both countries worked in collaboration with the artists and the poets to integrate extracts of the poetry with the artists’ images.



The exhibition consists of a variety of framed artworks in a variety of media, including photography, etching, screen-printing, digital print, tapestry and collage, as well as drawing and painting (oil, watercolor and gouache).



After the exhibition has finished touring, all the original artworks will be assembled and pages bound into a single volume and resting hopefully in The Scottish Parliament as its permanent home

Sinead Redmond.