The Consideration of the Planets: Oliver Sears Gallery

‘The Consideration of the Planets’ was a solo exhibition of installation works and bronze sculptures created by Patrick O’Reilly held in the Oliver Sears Gallery in 2013. The exhibition was shown across two locations in Dublin city, between the gallery and O’Reilly’s studio which was located in the deconsecrated church of St. Alphonsus in Drumcondra. 

Through this exhibition O’Reilly sought to look at the big questions of life by using dramatic props. By method of taking familiar objects, distorting them, making them from unusual materials and placing them in uncustomary situations, the focus of the work is shifted sometimes shockingly, on an otherwise ordinary object. The pièce de resistance of this showcase was an installation work known as ‘Haystack’ consisting of a thirty foot mound of straw shaped and inspired by the conical form which allured impressionist artists such as Monet. The artworks kept within the gallery consisted of a smaller version of the Haystack along with large photographs of the main installation and a collection of O’Reilly’s bronzes which embraced the artists passion for expressing human emotion through the guise of his teddy bear sculptures.

The use of the two locations for the display of the exhibition enabled the theme of this showcase to be fully realised; heaven and earth combined reflecting on the distance we seem to have come from the days when we were closer to both nature and belief. Evoking hope and futility, practicality and spirituality.