The Connemara village of Roundstone is preparing to take part in Culture Night for the first time this year.

The village has secured funding from the Department of the Gaeltacht to employ local artists and musicians for the event on Friday, September 21.

Roundstone has a very special place in Ireland’s art history and has been visited by many painters over two centuries. To celebrate this legacy, local artist Rosie McGurran will give a guided walk of the village, showing people places where artists like Gerard Dillon, Arthur Armstrong, Maurice Wilks, Laetitita Hamilton and Jack B. Yeats took inspiration from the landscape and built environment.

The village hall will host a community exhibition, where the many local people who paint, take photographs and create will come together to show their creative talent. Primary school pupils will also show their work throughout the village.

Rosie McGurran and her fellow artists Susan McKeever and Jennifer Cunningham will have an exhibition at Rosie’s studio in the village on the theme of nearby Inishlacken Island. All three artists have regularly made work on and about the renowned island and will show very different views of it.

Rosie works in watercolour, pastel and acrylic and presents her response to the West of Ireland in a narrative, figurative style. A resident of Roundstone for nearly 12 years she curates The Inishlacken Project, an island-based arts initiative. Susan McKeever is an abstract landscape artist from Belfast who also works in collage.

Jennifer Cunningham works in paint, print and film. She will present two video pieces, one in Rosie's studio, the second after 10pm on the Old Quay – this will be a first for the village.
 

One of the highlights of the evening will be a talk and exhibition in the Lower Hall by Mick O'Dea, RHA. He will display some of his acclaimed recent work based on the Black and Tans and the troubles of the 1920s. Mick’s work was recently shown at the Kevin Kavanagh Gallery, Dublin and Salthill’s Norman Villa Gallery as part of Galway Arts Festival. He will be introduced by former MEP Mary Bannotti and will offer the audience the opportunity to discuss his work, motivation and career.

In addition to art, there will be traditional music throughout various locations in the village all day as part of Culture NIght.

To continue the celebrations, the following day there will be a trip to Inishlacken Island with a guided walk of the island with Clifden archaeologist Michael Gibbons.

All events are free, but places must be booked in advance, call 095 35076.