After three days of painting the Art in the Open Exhibition opened yesterday in Greenacres Gallery and runs until Saturday 7th. Read all about the Festival in today’s Irish Times article by Gemma Tipton.
Congratulations to all those exhibiting and especially to our local artist Paul Maloney, winner of the overall Mayoral Award.

The 3rd annual Irish festival of plein air painting:

"View from Trimmer's Lane" Laura Cronin. Winner of AITO 09 Mayoral Award

 30th July – 1st Aug. 2010

This year’s festival highlights:

• Three days of outdoor painting in historic Wexford and Enniscorthy
  
• Over 100 fellow artists including visitors from Europe, UK and USA
  
• Juried exhibition with cash awards of €4000
• Five masterclass demonstrations in Oils, Pastels & Watercolours
• Six extra days free Paint Outs to sites around Wexford with local artists

This third Art in the Open festival is even more ambitious than in the two preceding years and will be  attracting more artists to participate in a major event devoted to plein air painting.
All are welcome to take part and enjoy the camaraderie in this very sociable event. Those who prefer to watch will have ample opportunity to do so with artists creating paintings on the streets giving a unique educational experience for the novice painter and the interested observer who can gain an insight into the creative process at first hand.

Enniscorthy

Registration begins in Wexford on Friday 30th July for the first day’s painting. Then on Saturday 31st July a highlight will be to move the event just 12 miles up the River Slaney to Enniscorthy, another historic location but one of a very different character with tree-lined river walks, steep streets, old shopfronts and its own landmark buildings such as the castle and Pugin cathedral overlooked by Vinegar Hill. Participants on this day who did not register in Wexford will register at the National 1798 Centre on Mill Park Road, Enniscorthy.

Demonstrations

Beginning on Thursday 29th July, a series of five one-hour demonstrations will be given by leading artists who will share plein air skills and methods in a variety of media. Details and times are on the Demonstrations page.

Paint Outs

Plein air painting attracts artists for many different reasons ranging from an authentic response to a particular atmosphere or capturing  a fleeting moment in time to simply combining a love of the outdoors and a love of painting. However, painting out as a group ( a so-called Paint Out) offers social and artistic interaction for participants which can be just as important as other benefits. To recognise this as well as perhaps making a longer visit to Wexford even more rewarding an extra  six  Paint Outs  (over 3 days before and 3 after the festival) are being held in excellent painting sites around the county.

Finally, there will be a large exhibition of paintings made throughout the weekend opening on Monday 2nd August when the mayoral award will be presented along with a number of other cash awards.

Art in the Open is an Irish visual arts festival of hard work, challenge, creativity, friendship and plenty of craic.  All are welcome, and artists from USA, Europe, UK and all corners of Ireland will be visiting Wexford to take part in what may well be Europe’s largest annual plein air painting event….will you?