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This portrait of my late friend, Cathy Henderson 1963-2014, is on show at the Royal Ulster Academy (RUA) in the Ulster Museum, Belfast until the 6th January 2019. It is fitting that she is on show in the city where she had her formative years as a teenager and where she met her husband. People often ask about what appears to be a badly drawn right leg. Cathy had the leg amputated following a motorcycle crash and wore a prosthetic.
Earlier this year I went to my studio and began a long promised return to my roots, the use of COLLAGE. Since I was a teenager I combined cut-outs with the painted image for parts of the image that I could not source from magazines etc. The result was the taking part in the Collagistas festival in September. I use collage to explore the imagery around food, especially food fads and trends and food security. BELOW LEFT: How Proper Smoked Salmon is Made, mixed media on paper, 50x40 cm, 2018 My last solo exhibition, called The Secular Icons, which was shown in Axis, Ballymun for the month of November 2017 and was very successful, both commercially and critically. Most of all it was very popular with the local people of Ballymun who had very nice comments to make. Follow the links below to read reviews. Professor Gary Granville wrote this review published in CIRCA, .http://circaartmagazine.website/this-matters-now/ and this one appeared in the DUBLIN INQUIRER www.dublininquirer.com/2017/11/14/a-ballymun-exhibit-frames-the-profane-with-the-sacred/ The exhibition consisted of nineteen small-scale icons that have the same subject matter as Byzantine and Renaissance icons but with contemporary themes. Religious icons gave worshippers the template of how to live, the ideal family and how to behave etc. In modern times, ethical decisions are often influenced by advertising and the mass media. The exhibition took an often humorous look at body image, buying free range and raising a family in contemporary Ireland. Left: Madonna and Child Centre: The Wholefood Family Oil on board, 30x25 cm. Right: The picker of Low-Hanging Fruit, 32x25cm, oil on board |
