Testing Ground is a new initiative that is part of CCA x Jerwood = Supports programme; an artist participating in each Crit Group is invited to take their work in progress forward by spending a month in CCA’s Project Space. This time aims to encourage experimentation and taking risks through realising work in its early stages with access to an audience.
Sally O’Dowd is using the space to test different arrangements of drawings and objects that will not otherwise be shown together. These include Drawings of Cavan from Afar, large landscape drawings, positioned next to James King Sings, work created while delivering Open Communal Drawing Sessions for PS2.
Sally will also use the space to make new drawings, taking off from her recent work where she imagined herself journeying through rural Cavan by bike. These larger landscape drawings explore rural Ireland through the artist’s personal connections to Cavan and the Black Pigs Dyke, a series of monumental discontinuous earthworks in Southwest Ulster and Northeast Connacht.