7.42 was a group show of 4 artists based in Ireland, Mary Kelly, Abigail O'Brien, Sean Cotter and Thomas Brezing. The show started at Lapua Art Museum, Finland (2011) and toured from there to the Cable Factory, Helsinki and Highlanes Municipal Gallery, Drogheda, Ireland (both in 2012).
Here is an extract from Katherine Waugh's catalogue essay A Matter Of Light And Death: 'The story of the local tragedy in Lapua of an ammunitions factory which exploded in the 1970's, causing the death of 40 people, was an event which touched all four artists, and given that the new Museum set to house the exhibition was built on the site of the accident, gave all four the opportunity to create or display work which responded to the disaster; often elliptically or obliquely but at all times with the utmost respect and emotional sensitivity. The title of the show 7.42 refers to the frozen time on the watch of a survivor after the event. Faulkner in The Sound and the Fury wrote that "clocks slay time. Time is dead as long as it is being clicked off by little wheels; only when the clock stops does time come to life" and though the work here has at times a melancholic air befitting a memorial function, it also teems with a celebration of life and colour. The relationship between light and death, and in particular how these Irish artists perceived light in a new and profoundly different way in a Finnish context, becomes the essence of the artistic response they had to Lapua and its past grief. "Into the deepest chasms, A Will O' the Wisp enticed me…Every sorrow finds its grave (extract from Schubert's song Irrlicht from his Winterreise cycle)".
Here is an extract from Katherine Waugh's catalogue essay A Matter Of Light And Death: 'The story of the local tragedy in Lapua of an ammunitions factory which exploded in the 1970's, causing the death of 40 people, was an event which touched all four artists, and given that the new Museum set to house the exhibition was built on the site of the accident, gave all four the opportunity to create or display work which responded to the disaster; often elliptically or obliquely but at all times with the utmost respect and emotional sensitivity. The title of the show 7.42 refers to the frozen time on the watch of a survivor after the event. Faulkner in The Sound and the Fury wrote that "clocks slay time. Time is dead as long as it is being clicked off by little wheels; only when the clock stops does time come to life" and though the work here has at times a melancholic air befitting a memorial function, it also teems with a celebration of life and colour. The relationship between light and death, and in particular how these Irish artists perceived light in a new and profoundly different way in a Finnish context, becomes the essence of the artistic response they had to Lapua and its past grief. "Into the deepest chasms, A Will O' the Wisp enticed me…Every sorrow finds its grave (extract from Schubert's song Irrlicht from his Winterreise cycle)".
