Tom Molloy: Issue, the artist’s first solo exhibition in New York, examines notions of power, ways it has been perverted, and asks universal questions about morality. Molloy is an enthusiastic collector of images and works in drawing, collage, photography, and sculpture; he creates ambiguous artworks that challenge perception and investigates the overlap between representation and association. Molloy’s minimal depictions of significant political and historical events are both subtle and highly charged, yet the simplicity of his aesthetic allows for conceptually rich, multi-layered associations.

Molloy examines the veracity of photography through the elective and selective nature of his images, which have been ruptured through editing, cropping, transference into another medium, or in their presentation in a non-linear chronology breaking their historical precedent. The idea of photography as an arbiter—the interface between image-making and historical fact—is the principal focus of this exhibition.

The exhibition includes eight artworks that address themes of history and photography by illustrating several momentous twentieth-century events and their subsequent implications on and for contemporary society. Molloy’s work interrogates how we communicate and perceive truth, and explores the different possibilities that could, and have arisen globally as a consequence of man’s inhumanity to man.

About:

Tom Molloy (b. 1964, Waterford, Ireland) is an artist living and working in Rouen, France. Molloy received an MA in 1992 and BA in 1987 from the National College of Art & Design, Dublin, Ireland. Among participating in several group exhibitions Molloy in 2005, a survey exhibition of his work was held at the Limerick City Gallery of Art, Limerick, Ireland, and in 2008 at the Solstice Arts Centre, County Meath, Ireland. In 2010, Molloy had a solo exhibition at The Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art and is included in the permanent collections of the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, Ireland; The Blanton Museum of Art at The University of Texas, Austin, TX; The Arts Council/An Chomhairle Ealaíon, Dublin, Ireland; The Zabludowicz Collection, London, UK; Fondazione Spinola Banna Per L’Arte, Turin, Italy; FRAC-Piemonte; FRAC Haute-Normandie, France, and Princeton University Art Museum, Princeton, NJ. Molloy is represented by Lora Reynolds Gallery, Austin, TX, and Rubicon Gallery Dublin, Ireland.

Partial sponsorship for Tom Molloy: Issue provided by Culture Ireland.

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