Accessibility
Regretfully there is limited access for persons with reduced mobility. Please contact Connie Farrell at info@lodesarschoolofart.com for more information and to discuss your situation.
Lodestar School of Art was founded in 2014 by painter Denis Farrell as an alternative to traditional academic pressures—where willingness to fail is a triumph, and to take a risk is key to crossing the Rubicon.
Each summer a formidable group of artists come together to work, discuss, share and reflect in an out of the way location that features stunning natural beauty. This year we are celebrating our 10 Year Anniversary with Lodestar | Le Corbusier 2024 being held at Le Couvent de la Tourette, a the World Heritage Site located on the outskirts of Lyon, France–and bringing a new set of challenges for artists to work within its magnificent interior.
Lodestar offers an open and reflective environment for students to take the creative and radical departure artists must seek in order to thrive. It’s a non-judgmental place where approval doesn’t need to be sought.
“The Lodestar School of Art is a summer school with a difference [and]could be described as an interruption and a temporary alternative to conventional academic art education. [Denis Farrell] aimed to attract artists who wanted to develop their work – to shake it up and move it on—and who wanted some informed critical input and real conversation about making art and about the theoretical underpinning that informs its making. – The idea is that no one is a passive or conventionally authoritative participant. Everyone works, whether that means painting, drawing, talking, writing or thinking, and everything is up for grabs. At the start of the 10 days, Farrell relished that he was not quite sure what was going to happen.” – Aidan Dunne , from “Art School with a Difference” The Irish Times 28 Aug 2014
Guest artists rotate from year to year, pending availability, so not all are teaching at the same time. Since 2014 guest artists include painters, poets, art critics, writers, thinkers, academics, art historians, and performance artists:
Robert Armstrong – John Brady – Squeak Carnwath – Ceara Conway – Diana Copperwhite – Nora Duggan – Terry Ekasala – Stuart Elster – Patrick Michael Fitzgerald – Judy Glantzman – Glenn Goldberg – Francis Gury – Sharon Horvath – Eddie Kennedy – Juul Kraijer – Erin Lawlor – Elizabeth Magill – Brian Maguire – Alice Maher – Ann Mc Cormick – Melissa Meyer – Dr Aisling Molloy – Mary O’Malley – Hanneline Røgeberg – Anne Ryan – Dr Jennifer Samet – Barry Schwabsky – Louise Scovell – Dermot Seymour – Dannielle Tegeder – Milly Thompson – Chuck Webster – John Yau
Plus other distinguished guests.
Lodestar | Le Corbusier 2024 will be conducted primarily in English (some French and Spanish also spoken)
Lodestar | Le Corbusier 2024 is an intensive 10-day residency of painting and drawing in the Convent de la Tourette near the city of Lyon, France. La Tourette was designed by architect Le Corbusier and is designated a World Heritage Site. Led by internationally recognised artists and critics from Europe and the US, students will be immersed in making, discussion and reflection combined with critical dialogue, structured around:
Individual One-on-One Critiques
Talks from Guest Artists
Evening Events and Excursions to include Studio Visits, Museums, Galleries, Poetry, Music and Performance
Showcase of Works-in-Progress and Closing Reception
Lodestar offers an open and reflective environment for students to take the creative and radical departure artists must seek in order to thrive. What makes it interesting is that it’s non-judgmental–it’s a place where approval doesn’t need to be sought, and the willingness to fail is a triumph. Students will be working alongside internationally recognised artists who share in this spirit of generosity. They will be mentored on an individual basis, with access to all guest artists. A fluid and relaxed exchange between guest artists and students—based on rigorous engagement—is designed to support the development of a chosen body of work. The atmosphere is generous, however, the session is decidedly rigorous and rewarding.
Mornings and afternoons are spent working, thinking, reflecting and working in La Tourette’s large shared studio spaces—or outside in the gardens. Evenings include a Guest Artist talk about their work, or a performance of music or poetry before dinner. Following dinner people are free to return to work or relax, or visit the nearby village of Éveux (20 min. walk). The first five days of the session are studio intensive, then we take one day for an excursion, before returning to the studio to continue for another four days. The last day is spent hanging the works-in-progress to be showcased in the evening, followed by a closing reception.
“Since Lodestar last year I got accepted into the Utopia Dystopia exhibition in the Lexicon Municipal Gallery in Dun Laoghaire and also to the Artnet Fire exhibition and Air Exhibition. I was also asked to exhibit a piece for Artnet for inclusion in the launch of their bid for an art centre in the Carnegie Library. I think the fact that I got my work into these shows was very much due to my time in Lodestar and the invaluable support and mentoring. “
Ann Mulcrone, Ireland, Lodestar 2019
“I felt privileged to be in the company of internationally renowned artists and critics from Europe and the U.S.A. and amazed by how generous they were with their time, giving us lots of encouragement, help and advice. I particularly enjoyed the talks each artist would give in the evenings about their own work and practice. It made for a relaxing end to the day. We worked hard alongside the visiting artists – wonderful people who were a real inspiration. There was a great sense of shared purpose and acceptance in a positive atmosphere. I made new friends for life and there is nothing I would like better than to meet them at Lodestar School of Art again in the future.”
Lorna Roberts, BA Honours (Fine Art), Sligo Institute of Technology, Ireland / Lodestar 2014, 2015, 2017
1 December 2023: Registration Opens, Accepting Applications
1 March 2024: Early Bird Application Deadline
31 March: Early Bird Registration Deadline (full payment required)
1 April: Application Deadline for “Student Rate”
15 May: Extended Application Deadline
15 May: Registration closes (cancellation deadline)
1 June: Balance of fees due
22 July: Arrival, orientation and welcoming reception (Monday)
23 July – 1 August: Programme session
2 August: Showcase of works-in-progress and closing reception (Friday)
3 August: Departure (Saturday)
Denis Farrell, founder and director of Lodestar School of Art, attended the New York Studio School, and then earned his MFA in Painting from Yale University School of Art. He has exhibited in New York, California, Boston, France and Ireland with museum exhibitions at The Dock and Limerick City Gallery of Art. Farrell is represented by Taylor Galleries, Dublin.
Read more…
Elizabeth Magill was born in Canada and studied at the Belfast College of Art, Ireland and the Slade School of Art, London. Magill’s work is represented in museum and public collections worldwide including TATE, London; The Irish Museum of Modern Art; The Arts Council of England; The Arts Council of Ireland; The British Museum, London; The British Council; the National Gallery of Australia; among others.
Read more…
Stuart Elster, holds a BFA in Painting and Drawing from the University of the Arts and an MFA in Painting and Printmaking from the Yale University School of Art. Stuart has been represented by Junior Projects Gallery, Lucas Schoormans and Tate Galleries. In New York his work as been exhibited at Sala Projects Gallery, Junior Projects Gallery, Lucas Schoormans, Tate, Marvelli, Schroeder Romero and Nicole Klagsburn Galleries.
Read more…
Glenn Goldberg was born in the Bronx, NY, studied at the New York Studio School and received his MFA from Queens College. His work is collected by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the National Gallery, Brooklyn Museum of Art, and LACMA, plus others. Goldberg has shown in New York, Boston, St Louis, and Munich, and is represented by Jason McCoy.
Read more…
Juul Kraijer graduated from the Rotterdam Academy of Fine Arts in 1994. Her drawings, photographs, sculptures and videos have been shown widely, among others in the Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art (2009) and the Kochi Muziris Biennale (India, 2018). Her work is represented in public collections internationally, including MoMA, New York; MONA, Tasmania; Museum Kunst Palast, Düsseldorf; Kupferstichkabinett Berlin; Museum Moderner Kunst Vienna; Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris and several Dutch museums.
Read more…
Patrick Michael Fitzgerald is an Irish artist who lives and works in Vizcaya, Spain. He earned his BA and MA in Fine Art Painting from the Chelsea School of Art in London. He has exhibited widely in Europe and elsewhere with work collected by the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin; OPW (The Irish State Collection); ARTIUM – Centro-Museo Vasco de Arte Contemporáneo, Vitoria, Spain and the Albers Foundation, USA, among others.
Read more…
Eddie Kennedy was born in North Tipperary in 1960 and now lives in Dublin. He earned his MFA from the Univ of Cincinnati, and then lived and exhibited in NYC before returning to Ireland in 1996. Kennedy’s work has been shown at John Cacciola in Chelsea, art fairs in LA, Miami and Chicago, and extensively in Ireland, the UK and Europe. Kennedy was a recipient of the Pollock-Krasner Foundation award and represented by Hillsboro Fine Art, Dublin.
Ann Mc Cormick was born in Dublin. She has a DFA in painting from the Crawford School of Art in Cork and an MFA in painting from the Belfast College of Art. She has exhibited in Berlin, Ireland, Great Britain and the US. Since 2004 she is living in Berlin. Aside from painting, she made countless drawings and colourstyled on many animation films and TV series, working in Dublin, Budapest and Berlin.
Arrival + Orientation
Welcome Reception + Denis Farrell: Vernissage
Set Up Studio Spaces
Eddie Kennedy
Individual Tutorials
Terry Ekasala
Individual Tutorials
Ann Mc Cormick
Individual Tutorials
Michael Patrick Fitzgerald
Individual Tutorials
Juul Kraijer
Excursion
Individual Tutorials
Stuart Elster
Individual Tutorials
Elizabeth Magill
Individual Tutorials
(TBD)
Studio Day
(TBD)
Hang Work for Showcase of Work-in-Progress
Showcase + Closing Reception
Departure
Lodestar School of Art started as a series of conversations and debates Denis Farrell had with other artists about education. At a certain point—while sitting around the table sharing ideas, enthusiasm and a meal—it became obvious there was a need to start something a little different.
There has been a documented rise in debate and disillusionment with traditional systems of art education of late, evidenced in the recent number of alternative art schools that have sprung up in the UK, US and beyond. “The language of art school academia now is not the language of ‘creativity’, but rather institutional research and rhetoric. The real work is about remaining inquisitive and relentless…and staying in the work,” emphasises Lodestar Founder and Director, Denis Farrell.
Lodestar’s premise is quite simple: bring together students and artists from around the world who share the same level of commitment and ambition for the work. Guest artists will get space to work, students and guest artists will work alongside each other, it will be studio intensive yet informed by critical input from artists, critics and historians, and complemented by talks from guest artists (about whatever they choose). The atmosphere is meant to be relaxed, but highly productive where neither guest artist nor student remains passive.
Founder Denis Farrell is an abstract painter originally from Ireland who received a Fulbright Scholarship for Fine Art, and used it to pursue painting at the New York Studio School in Manhattan in 1990. He then accepted a full scholarship to do his MFA in Painting at Yale University School of Art (1993). Farrell maintained studios in New Haven, Connecticut and in New York City while exhibiting in New York, Boston and Ireland. In 1997 Farrell founded Bingo Hall, a contemporary art space, in Williamsburg Brooklyn, to exhibit the work of a diverse group of international artists not represented by the commercial gallery system. Nan Annan, wife of Kofi Annan—former Secretary General of the UN, opened the gallery. Since 2000 Farrell has been dividing his time between Ireland and France. In New York Farrell’s work turned toward the grid developing large and quiet abstract paintings with a brush stroke that seemed to knit the oils on the surface, and more recently smaller, feisty watercolour and ink works on paper housed in handmade, cloth-bound boxes.
“When I fist applied, I was very curious, not knowing, what it really is, Lodestar. I was really looking for education that could bring me further in my professional art work. I was not looking for a ‘summer camp’ or workshops. I found that ‘further education’ for professionals is something missing. And this is what Lodestar really was/is. So wonderful and unique! And at the same time meeting artists/teachers from all over the world who were great at ‘picking up’ every participant at the point of he/his stage in their work.”
Swiss artist Victorine Müller is a performance artist who also makes sculpture/installation work (and more recently video). She came to Lodestar to develop her drawings. Her work from Lodestar (2014/2018) culminated in solo exhibitions in Zurich and Berlin.
“…the tactile resonance of [Farrell’s] intimate surfaces keeps my eye steady in the centre of the force-field, signalling solitude without fear of recompense. No equivocation resides in my desire to experience the depth of his surfaces. These paintings are about intimacy, offering a subtle potion against an encroaching standardization that pressures artists to bend to the trends of globalization. With Farrell, the force- field is secure. There will be no giving-in.”
Robert C. Morgan, The Intimate Palimpsest,
catalogue essay (New Paintings 2005)
I am text block. Click edit button to change this text. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Ut elit tellus, luctus nec ullamcorper mattis, pulvinar dapibus leo.
To apply please provide the following information by the extended Application Deadline of 15 May 2024:
1. Register Online
Please complete the online registration form with your details at www.lodestarschoolofart.com
2. Show Us Your Work
Email us 5-10 images (max) of your work or provide a link to an online portfolio. Kindly send images to info@lodestarschoolofart.com
3. Let Us Know Your Expectations
La Tourette de la Couvent is an architectural world heritage site, a Le Corbusier masterpiece. The building itself offers both inspiration and challenges. Considering its limitations in terms of interior working space, please include a brief statement (a paragraph) indicating how you might respond to the challenge and what you hope to gain from the programme.
4. Accept Your Place
Candidates will be notified by email within 5-10 days of their application. To accept your place please submit the €300 deposit (non-refundable) upon notification. The balance is due within 2 weeks of offer (and no later than 15 May 2024), or contact Connie Farrell regarding an alternative payment schedule.
NOTE: The Early Bird application deadline is 1 March 2024, and full payment of €2,590 Early Bird Rate must be received by 31 March 2024.
5. Questions?
Please contact Connie Farrell, School Coordinator at info@lodestarschoolofart.com
Please Note: All participants must be 18 years old or older, and provide proof of age (for insurance purposes).
Lodestar | Le Corbusier 2024 is held at the Convent of La Tourette, built between 1953 and 1960 in Éveux, near Lyon, Le Corbusier’s last great work in France. It is a mature work whose strength, richness and complexity are such that in 1986 French architects chose it as the second most important contemporary work, after the Pompidou Center by Piano and Rogers. The convent was classified as a Historic Monument in 1979, and the friars’ cemetery was included in the classification in 2011. Finally on July 17, 2016, Unesco inscribed “the architectural work of Le Corbusier, an exceptional contribution to the Modern Movement” on the World Heritage List.
“Architecture is a system of thought.” –Le Corbusier
In 1923, in his book Vers une architecture (Towards a New Architecture), architect and designer Le Corbusier declared houses to be “machines for living in.” While this phrase speaks to his belief that good design should be functional, Le Corbusier was equally invested in marrying utilitarianism with “poetry, beauty, and harmony.” Rejecting earlier movements like Art Nouveau for their celebration of ornament, historical nostalgia, and lack of functionality, he embraced the work of American engineers—in the form of machines, factory complexes, and grain silos—as a foundation for a new, modern architectural language.
Le Corbusier’s emphasis on the purity of geometric form and revolutionary work in reinforced concrete still loom large within the field of architecture today. He was also a visual artist, producing work ranging from Cubist paintings to figurative tapestries. He may have emphasized simplified, streamlined volumes and shapes, but his aims were anything but modest; good architecture, he argued, has the capacity to reach to the core of human existence. In his words, “The architect, through the ordonnance of forms […] determines the diverse movements of our minds and our hearts; it is then that we experience beauty.” [ from the website of the Museum of Modern Art, New York ]
BY CAR
30 min drive from downtown Lyon. Take the A6 freeway (Paris-Lyon) direction Paris, then take the A89, direction Roanne/Clermont Ferrand, exit L’Arbresle, then direction Éveux.
BY TRAIN FROM PARIS
It’s simplest and fastest to fly into Charles de Gaulle Airport and take the TGV fast train directly from the airport (Terminal 2) to L’Arbresle (changing trains at Lyon Part Dieu train station in Lyon). The journey takes approximately 4 hours.
BY TRAIN FROM LYON
From Lyon Gorge de Loup or Lyon Part Dieu (very frequent during the week), exit at l’Arbresle. Trains from Lyon Gorge de Loup run every 15-30 min on weekdays (confirm train schedule with SNCF). On Sundays, about 1 train per hour. And from Lyon Part Dieu every 2 hours, weekdays from 6am to 9pm and weekends from 7am to 9pm.
FROM LYON SAINT EXUPÉRY AIRPORT
From Lyon Saint Exupéry airport, take the Rhône-Express shuttle to Lyon Part Dieu train station. At Part Dieu station, take the TER train to Roanne and stop at the Arbresle train station.
FROM L’ARBRESLE TRAIN STATION
To reach the convent from the L’Arbresle train station, it takes about 30 minutes to walk (2km) or about 5 min by car. To book a cab :
GPS coordinate : 45.821799 x 4.622729.
NOTE : Enter “Éveux (69, Rhône)”, not “La Tourette”.
Accommodation is modest single, private rooms (with a sink) and shared toilet and showers at Le Couvent de la Tourette.
Breakfast, lunch and dinner are provided at the convent, including a continental breakfast, lunch and a vegetarian meal at dinner. Please alert us to any allergies and specific dietary requirements.
There are also options for dinner in the village of Éveux a 30 min walk (2km) from the convent.