DUBLIN, IRELAND.- Exhibitions from the Irish Museum of Modern Art’s own Collection open to the public in two venues in Galway this February – as part of IMMA’s National Programme. Radharc, comprising selected works from the IMMA Collection , opens to the public at Galway University Hospital and Galway Arts Centre on Friday 2 February 2007. The exhibition is curated by staff members of Galway University Hospital and the residents of Henry Street , Galway . The exhibition at Galway University Hospital will be opened by Olive Braiden, Chairperson, the Arts Council at 6.00pm on Friday 2 February while the exhibition at Galway Arts Centre, will be opened by Ruairí Ó’Cuív, freelance curator at 8.00pm on the same day.

Works range from Barrie Cooke’s Megaceros Hibernicus, a painting in which the depicted elk represents a powerful symbol of pre-civilised consciousness, to Cúchulainn in Warp-Spasm by Louis le Brocquy, one of 20 tapestries by le Brocquy illustrating the legend of The Táin – both on show at Galway University Hospital . Works on show at the Galway Arts Centre include Scraping the Surface… by John Kindness, a New York taxi cab door onto which the artist has etched a scene in the style of a classical Greek vase, and Maud Cotter’s One Way of Containing Air, a work relating to the body and the structures we build around it.

The exhibition also includes works by Alice Maher, Paula Rego, Tony O’Malley and Sean Scully at Galway University Hospital while the Galway Arts Centre includes works by Paul Winstanley, Alanna O’Kelly, and Andrew Vickery.

Radharc will be accompanied by a series of workshops with hospital staff and local schools supported by the Department of Education and Science.

IMMA’s National Programme is designed to create access opportunities to the visual arts in a variety of situations and locations in Ireland . Using the Collection of the Irish Museum of Modern Art and exhibitions generated by the Museum, the National Programme facilitates the creation of exhibitions and other projects for display in a range of locations around the country. The National Programme establishes the Museum as inclusive, accessible and national, de-centralising the Collection , and making it available to communities in their own localities, on their own terms, in venues with which the audience is comfortable and familiar.