Rachel Botha

the limits of my language


Chloe Brenan
Elaine Grainger
Johanna Nulty

the limits of my language is a group exhibition with artists Chloe Brenan, Elaine Grainger and Johanna Nulty. A conversation commences; a dialogue through structure, sound and film in an attempt to articulate tacit knowledge, haptic memory and subconscious experience.

Language spoken or written can be constricting. There are often rules and codes that must be adhered to when expressing oneself and interpreting others’. What we cannot talk about, due to the limitations of language, is often passed over in silence. This inability to express the personal, innate and intimate forces us to find an alternative way to communicate what is being left unsaid.

A quote from Claire-Louise Bennett’s book Pond has been a persistent point of inspiration, “I don't think my first language can be written down at all. I'm not sure it can be made external you see. I think it has to stay where it is; simmering in the elastic gloom betwixt my flickering organs.”

This exhibition of newly commissioned artworks is not open to the public, simply realised and documented, with only Elaine Grainger’s assemblage of objects and elements still lingering in the Kilkenny Arts Office Gallery at 76–77 John Street Lower.

Elaine Grainger, “In its essence my practice is about recording and revealing what is unseen and unheard. Threads sewn together are born from small observations; things left untouched, the residue of an event and fragments of recollection losing its detail. The work on site in the gallery space was created in direct response to an engagement with a local limestone quarry. Uncovering memory through the rupture in the landscape and recording its active transformation. The works presented in the gallery space have themselves been through transformation, porcelain ground to dust, crab apples fallen and cast forms an altered time frame of transformation. Each assembled piece has the potential to collapse, deflate and disintegrate but never to disappear.”

A souvenir from the exhibition has been collaboratively produced with writer Michaela Nash and designers Models & Constructs to engage with an audience who can not visit the gallery.

the limits of my language is the third exhibition of the Kilkenny County Council Arts Office’s Emerging Curator in Residence 2020 with Rachel Botha. This programme is funded by Kilkenny County Council Arts Office and the Arts Council of Ireland.

→ Exhibition Souvenir
Elaine Grainger, the limits of my language, 76–77 John Street Lower, Kilkenny, 2021, installation view. Photography by Brian Cregan. Chloe Brenan, the limits of my language, 76–77 John Street Lower, Kilkenny, 2021, installation view. Photography by Brian Cregan. Elaine Grainger, the limits of my language, 76–77 John Street Lower, Kilkenny, 2021, installation view. Photography by Brian Cregan. Elaine Grainger, the limits of my language, 76–77 John Street Lower, Kilkenny, 2021, installation view. Photography by Brian Cregan. Elaine Grainger, the limits of my language, 76–77 John Street Lower, Kilkenny, 2021, installation view. Photography by Brian Cregan. Johanna Nulty, the limits of my language, 76–77 John Street Lower, Kilkenny, 2021, installation view. Photography by Brian Cregan. Elaine Grainger, the limits of my language, 76–77 John Street Lower, Kilkenny, 2021, installation view. Photography by Brian Cregan. Chloe Brenan, the limits of my language, 76–77 John Street Lower, Kilkenny, 2021, installation view. Photography by Brian Cregan. Johanna Nulty, the limits of my language, 76–77 John Street Lower, Kilkenny, 2021, installation view. Photography by Brian Cregan. Elaine Grainger, the limits of my language, 76–77 John Street Lower, Kilkenny, 2021, installation view. Photography by Brian Cregan. Models & Constructs, research driven design collective. Models & Constructs, research driven design collective. Models & Constructs, research driven design collective.