KEVIN KAVANAGH GALLERY

Mark Swords (b.1978, Dublin) is an artist who lives with his family in County Wicklow, Ireland. Swords has exhibited his work widely, both nationally and internationally and is represented in numerous collections. His recent exhibitions include "I must walk towards Oregon", Kevin Kavanagh (2023), Tribuna, 2022 at The Royal Hibernian Academy of Arts, Dublin, Portico, 2021, with Tanad Aaron at The Complex, Dublin and TAUCHGANG, 2019, a group exhibition at Galerie Christian Lethert, Cologne. He is represented by Kevin Kavanagh, Dublin.

Kevin Kavanagh presents Urban Myth, a group exhibition of photography by gallery and invited artists. These artists demonstrate the changing role of photographs in our digital world. No longer just records of the real or of a moment in time, they have become the basis of our modern folklore. Where once we gathered round the fire to share stories, now we pass images from screen to screen. As urban myths, this folklore permeates every aspect of our daily lives. They are an articulation of our fears and insecurities, an attempt to put order on an increasingly chaotic world, and a measure of the society we think we live in. As short videos and memes, they are the driving force behind much social media. Increasingly, they dictate the direction of populist politics and of society itself. In Urban Myth the photographers become storytellers. The stories they tell grapple with the underlying drivers of our new digital urban lives. They reflect our desires and our fears in a world of isolated individuals cut off from their natural roots and struggling with the unknown. This modern unease with nature recurs throughout the exhibition. Gary Coyle taps into our enduring fear of the forest, itself the source of many myths that predate our urban society. In Izabela Szczutkowska’s photographs, nature encroaches in dream-like compositions. Devoid of people, plants reclaim our concrete world. Elaine Byrne crystallises a sense of impending doom. People loiter in artificial pools beside a raging sea. They appear as unaware of each other as they are of the waves that are about to wash them away. The sense of isolation, whether alone or in company, is increasingly common in this digitally connected world. Cloaked in a mysterious blue, camouflaged against screen or sky, a lone figure runs away from Dragana Jurišić. Bringing us to the source of our urban myths, Michael Boran focuses his gaze on an empty house. In the end it is just us. At home with only a screen.