I am a visual artist with a BA in Fine Art Painting, born in Galway and based in Limerick. I work with combined media, focusing primarily on watercolour and oil paint on canvas while fusing mixed media, photography, objects and wood within my practice. I explore themes related to the human body, intimacy and physicality within relationships and the self, and the interplay between the corporeal body and the concept of ‘home’, creating an overarching sense of intimacy. I explore these concepts primarily through the use of nakedness, intending to pictorially reveal the internal, to expose private moments and dive into the detail of an experience. Describing the occasion when one thing meets another, and sometimes an ‘after moment’ instead of the moment itself encouraging a sense of reflection. These queer intimate female-centric naked works aim to both work in and against the traditional nude genre and ideas of conventional viewership. To convey themes of identity and queerness, while questioning viewership and the male gaze. Examining how it feels to exist in a body as a queer woman in the 21st century. I wanted to put an emphasis on the women being active and central to the narrative of the works. By employing the intimate obscured points of view, I hoped to challenge the way that nudes are traditionally consumed. My subjects and audience are involved and have sexual agency and control of their bodies. While not necessarily overtly erotic or explicit these works aim to become meditations of moments of sweetness and eroticism combined. I also wanted to approach the queerness and depiction of same-sex interactions with a clear sense of normality. I aim to obscure and ground the body in places, often domestic spaces, to convey the reality of sharing a physical space with another person. Using domestic objects and materials in a way that expresses comfort, intimism and vulnerability counter to critiques of domestic trappings. Where normally the domestic setting is a stage for female oppression, in these works the objects act as a stage of female expression and exploration. Using canvas and wood as a conduit for skin, as a material that absorbs and warps with experience, holding memory. I am motivated by the writings of Donald Kuspit, especially ‘The Troubling Nude’ (1999) and ‘The Naked Truth’ (2001) and inspired by Jenny Saville and Lucian Freud, both in content and how they use paint and paint skin. Kathy Prendergast’s work inspires me with its tone of intimacy and attitude towards the body and how her work explores ideas that are personal and emotional tied with her incorporation of everyday objects. Maria Lassnig and her attitude towards the body and her idea of body awareness is inspiring to my use of paint and movement of the body also and artist Amanda Ba is a motivation to me in how she depicts women and herself as striking powerful beings in her contemporary nude works.
