LE PUY-SAINTE-RÉPARADE.- Château La Coste is currently presenting an exhibition of new tapestries, embroideries and paintings by Irish artist Domino Whisker titled ‘Stay Awhile’, her first major solo show outside of Ireland. These works reflect the beauty that the artist has found in her journey through grief and the resulting shift in her being. At a first glance, intricately embroidered birds ‘in flight and fright’ and tapestries depicting seascapes and stormy skies may seem dark, yet, if the viewer were to ‘stay awhile’, glimpses of hope and light shine through.

Based in Dublin, self-taught Domino Whisker took up embroidery a decade ago, seeking a creative outlet for emotional release whilst caring for her father who was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s Disease. Initially serving as a means of catharsis and processing this challenging personal experience, Whisker's exhibition at Château La Coste signifies a new chapter in her artistic journey following the loss of her father, which she refers to as a 'Sea Change'. While these new pieces continue to explore the recurring themes of death and grief, Whisker has pushed herself to confront her emotions, leading her to reflect on life and find peace amidst the chaos.

Throughout her life, poetry has exerted a profound influence on Whisker, having been read anything from Roald Dahl to Lord Byron as a child by her parents. Many of her embroideries crafted on vintage and Irish linen feature fragments of poetry or short phrases – one of the first things she taught herself to sew. The slow process requires time and patience, awarding Whisker a sense of calm amid her most difficult moments and helping her to navigate her feelings. She explains, ‘One of the first things I stitched were the words ‘something beautiful’ – because that was what I was looking for in life, something simple, something beautiful, something to make me smile and when I realised that I could create that myself – I felt an incredible power over my own life.’ The pairing of words and images is sometimes considered, and other times has a more playful intention. For example, one embroidery features an elegant white bird symbolising purity and optimism, yet clutched within its beak is a sign reading 'nope,' creating a whimsical paradox.

Birds in flight serve as a central motif in this exhibition, intricately mapping Whisker’s emotional journey. Birds, often black crows, initially came to her during the pandemic, when the world was confined and yearned for freedom. Gradually, these creatures took on a wilder and more foreboding nature. Swooping and diving, they seemed poised to strike — a physical manifestation of the tumultuous emotions that consumed Whisker. Through the act of stitching these crows, the artist found a means to comprehend her grief. Now finding beauty within her embroideries, the birds became a symbol of hope, offering comfort and solace.

Whisker will present new large-scale tapestries that continue these themes in scenes depicting stormy skies and turbulent seas. These hand-tufted tapestries use wool sourced from Donegal Yarns, the last woollen mill in Ireland, thereby maintaining a meaningful connection to her home country. A captivating group of four new pill-shaped tapestries continue Whisker’s previous series ‘Remember To Take Your Pills, The Pills That Make You Happy’. Whereas the earlier works were solid in colour, these pills evolved with the artist into vibrant, imaginative compositions, each featuring an architectural world with stairs and doorways, castles and vast skies with sunsets.

Finally, Whisker will exhibit a collection of watercolours, another medium which she has recently embraced in this new phase. While stitching requires precision and carries a certain tension for the artist, painting offers a sense of freedom and dreaminess as colours run and blend into various patterns and colours without constraint. This lack of control serves as a powerful tool for Whisker, enabling her to delve into the more compulsive parts of her mind and reach the realisation that ultimately we have no control of anything.

Though born in Dublin in 1988, Whisker spent her childhood in Los Angeles with her artist parents, raising rabbits and iguanas in the canyons of Pacific Palisades, watching sunsets and reading books in the back of her father’s ‘67 Chevy Impala. On returning to Ireland in 2001, she began experimenting with embroidery, weaving the shapes of her adventures into her work, along with her whims, woes and words.

Her work has been exhibited in several group shows including ‘Girls, Girls, Girls’, curated by Simone Rocha in Lismore Castle, Waterford; ‘Island’, a showcase of tapestries; and ‘Paipear’ at Hang Tough Gallery in Dublin. She also participated in talks on her process as part of the ‘Myth Making and Meanings’ event at The Hugh Lane Gallery in Dublin.

Following her acclaimed first solo show ‘REMNANTS’ in Atelier Now in Dublin, Whisker accrued many commissions including a major project for Claridge’s Hotel in London. She received the prestigious RCSI Award in 2021 for The Birds and I, a large, embroidered piece exhibited in the 191st Annual Group show at the RHA in Dublin. She is currently working towards her upcoming solo show in Château La Coste, France, in Autumn 2023.

Château La Coste

Situated in one of the oldest winemaking regions of France, between the historic city of Aix-En- Provence and the Luberon National Park, Château La Coste is a vineyard where wine, art and architecture co-exist in harmony. Since it opened to the public in 2011, Château La Coste invites visitors to discover over forty major works of contemporary art installed in the open air and five gallery spaces dotted across the 500-acre site.

Each year artists and architects are invited to visit the domain and discover the unique beauty of this Provençal landscape, with its famed cypresses, stone pines, olive trees and ancient oaks. They are given the freedom to create a site-specific work in an area of the site that inspires them, so Château La Coste continues to evolve as new projects and installations are developed. Artists and architects who have created permanent works at Château La Coste include Frank O. Gehry, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Louise Bourgeois, Richard Rogers, Sophie Calle, Tracey Emin and Jean Nouvel.

Château La Coste, Bastide Gallery
Domino Whisker: Stay Awhile
September 17th, 2023 - November 2023