Laois husband and wife exhibition is a first for Abbeyleix Library
Senior library assistant at Abbeyleix Library Lori Moriarty and her daughters Merryn and Ellie (right) pictured with their aunt and uncle Catherine and Eamon Holahan, who launched their joint art exhibition at the library Photos: Stan Henderson
IN celebration of their 43rd wedding anniversary, artist Catherine Holahan and her sculpturer husband Eamon launched an amazing joint art exhibition featuring paintings of farm animals by Catherine and amazingly crafted miniature steel figures by Eamon in Abbeyleix Library recently.
The creative couple from near Johnstown, just across the Laois/Kilkenny border from Cullahill, are aunt and uncle to senior library assistant at Abbeyleix Library, Lori Moriarty. Catherine has previously displayed her paintings in the library, but this is the first for Eamon and indeed the first husband and wife exhibition.
Catherine loves to take pictures of their farm animals and then paints them while successfully showing each animal's individual characters through her super acrylic paintings.
Eamon never walks past a nut, bolt, old piece of metal or nails around the farmyard without picking them up and imagines what he can use them for in a new sculptured piece where he skilfully.
The launch took place on Thursday 9 October, the day after the couple’s 43rd wedding anniversary, and was well attended by locals and Catherine and Eamon’s family and friends who travelled to the heritage town’s library for the opening night.
Catherine and Eamon spoke about their exhibition to the .
Catherine said: “I take my inspirations from rural life including our farm animals, nature, wildlife, historic buildings and different things that you’d see around the countryside. I work mostly in acrylics and one of my exhibition pieces is of Doonagore Castle in Doolin in Co Clare which is a round tower house perched on a hill looking over the Atlantic Ocean. I work from my photographs of the farm animals who all have different personalities.” Eamon said that he has always been welding for most of his life on the farm. He said: “I’m a farmer and a hands-on kind of a guy. Any scrap bits that I see I always look at them in a different light and ponder what I can do with them. If anything breaks, I pick it up. Catherine calls me a magpie.” The couple are now working in combination for this exhibition and both of them love combining their works. Catherine paints the surrounding scenes, and they remove a square from the centre of the piece which then houses some of Eamon’s sculptors.
Continuing, Eamon said: “I love what we are doing together now. We came up with the idea of me putting my pieces into the centre of Catherine’s art. I also have standalone pieces like my miniature band of four musicians that I call The Steel Paddies and tractors and the likes.” When asked where the idea of complimenting each other’s work by combining their pieces together came from, Eamon and Catherine said that when they were on holidays in January in Fuerteventura in the middle of winter that they swam every day and found themselves in their artistic minds.
They said that they spoke about how they could combine their art and that when they got home, they put their ideas into practice.
Catherine said: “We were talking about my painting and Eamon’s steel work and how we both enjoy what we do and then we decided on a way to combine them together.” This unique exhibition is well worth visiting and it can be viewed during the library opening hours. Also, due to the unique long show-window in Abbeyleix Library, which is lit up at nighttime, most of the exhibition can be seen 24/7 by passers-by and by people stopped at the traffic lights. Catherine Holahan can be found on Facebook and Instagram for any further inquiries.
