Inside Athlone's own Abbey Road art studio facility

After years of planning, Athlone's new Abbey Road artists' studios will be officially opened on Friday, September 16. The studios are located towards the rear of St Mary's Hall, facing onto Abbey Road. Fittingly for a facility which shares a name with The Beatles' famous recording venue, the Athlone studios provide individual units in which (a fab) four artists can work at their craft. The studios also incorporate a multi-purpose space which could be used for collaborative art projects and exhibitions. The Westmeath Independent was recently given a tour of the studios by Miriam Mulrennan, the manager of Athlone Art and Heritage Ltd. Earlier this year, Athlone Art and Heritage was established by the town council to manage the new artists' studios as well as the art gallery at Fr Mathew Hall and Athlone Castle. Ms Mulrennan stated that, at the time of going to press, three of the four individual artists' studios were booked and there had been a number of enquiries about the fourth space. The units are being rented out to artists at a subsidised rate of €150 per month. "Prior to this a lot of artists would have been working from home or renting places that wouldn't really have been suitable," she said. "Now, instead of working in isolation, they will be part of a hub and a community of artists." She added that, in a sense, the facility itself was a canvas which could potentially be utilised by schools and community organisations as well as dedicated art groups. The official opening of the studios will take place on September 16, but some of the artists will begin moving into the units from this week. One of the artists who is renting a unit at the studios is Kiltoom's Margo McNulty. Originally from Achill Island, Margo lectures part-time in the Design Department at Athlone IT. Her art is mostly in the area of printmaking, and it deals with hidden history, memory and place, as well as aspects of everyday life and experience. Margo's work has been featured in exhibitions throughout Ireland, as well as in Poland, Paris and London. She felt that the new facility was a great addition to the town, and was something which had been needed for some time. Athlone's Emer O'Connor will also be working from the studios, as will Moate artist Lesley Wingfield. Lesley said she was looking forward to the new venture. "I think it's an amazing facility and it will nice to work here because it can get very isolated working in a studio space at home," she commented. Lesley's art is mostly portraiture, and she hopes to use the Abbey Road studios "to be a bit more experimental and use different media." She is one of four members of an art collective, Exquisite CoLab, which is holding an open studio project at the new facility from September 19 until Culture Night on September 23. The open studio project will give the public a chance to call in to talk to the artists while they work on pieces for an exhibition entitled 'The Case of the Exquisite Corpse'. Paul Roy of Exquisite CoLab said the exhibition would be loosely based around the theme of suitcases. "Suitcases can represent a lot of things, from the film noir idea of suitcases on a platform as a train is about to pull away, to one's own belongings and personal baggage. A suitcase can also contain dark secrets," he said. By opening up their creative process to the Athlone public, the group said it hoped to demystify art. "We've always taken the approach of bringing art to the public rather than being aloof about it," said Paul.