Whispers of rhythm balance on my hands
Commissioned by Draíocht
Wednesday 12 June — Saturday 28 September 2024
Curated by Sharon Murphy
Whispers of rhythm balance on my hands is inspired by the artist’s contemplation on the processes of making art
and in particular her investigation into the possibilities of paint as a medium in two- dimensional aspect and in
expanded three-dimensional iterations. These include sculptural assemblages, mixed media, video, textiles and print.
Her deeply intuitive and playful exploration of the materiality of paint via form, colour, rhythm, flow, gestural marks,
layering and collaging is in her own words ‘continually in flux’, evolving through research, studio-based
experimentation and reflection on personal experiences of healing from endometriosis and infertility, out of which her
conceptual concerns take form.
McCaughey’s work has personal and hidden meanings that are bound up in learned, lost and altered theological
ideologies and humanistic notions that the artist has been exposed to through time. Her work is rooted in the history of
art in particular medieval and Renaissance religious paintings, fragments of which fill her visual journals and function
as a form of visual thinking and as a core resource for her paintings. Of interest in particular is the history and politics
that surround the female body, the representation and construction of female social identity and the idealized
representation of woman throughout art history. Recently McCaughey has been drawn to the process of ‘Active
Imagination’ a method of analytical psychology which brings unconscious content to consciousness and produce a
wide array of images, conscious memory material, feelings, symbols, figures (animals, mythological) and images and
shapes of wholeness.
The work for this exhibition has emerged organically and site specifically over a long gestation period of 18 months.
McCaughey says of this process that having a studio space in Dublin is a great privilege, it is a safe space where an
artist can disconnect from the noise outside, slow down, digest thoughts and ideas and reconnect with the self. The
artist/curator relationship was dynamic and mutually enriching characterised by a sharing back and forth about art,
painting, femininity, female agency, mental health, histories and embodied memories all of which has seeped into the
exhibition in distilled and abstracted ways.
McCaugheys work is physical, tactile, and handmade with an equal focus on its shifting materiality. Both her painting
and sculpture for this exhibition reveal traces of the body, performance, and healing activity via brush stroke, mark
making, and moulding. It is important to McCaughey that these qualities lend a symbolic dimension to the work,
emitting a certain presence of the artist despite her absence. In turn it invites the viewer to inhabit the space and
experience the work.
Commissioned by Draíocht
Wednesday 12 June — Saturday 28 September 2024
Curated by Sharon Murphy
Whispers of rhythm balance on my hands is inspired by the artist’s contemplation on the processes of making art
and in particular her investigation into the possibilities of paint as a medium in two- dimensional aspect and in
expanded three-dimensional iterations. These include sculptural assemblages, mixed media, video, textiles and print.
Her deeply intuitive and playful exploration of the materiality of paint via form, colour, rhythm, flow, gestural marks,
layering and collaging is in her own words ‘continually in flux’, evolving through research, studio-based
experimentation and reflection on personal experiences of healing from endometriosis and infertility, out of which her
conceptual concerns take form.
McCaughey’s work has personal and hidden meanings that are bound up in learned, lost and altered theological
ideologies and humanistic notions that the artist has been exposed to through time. Her work is rooted in the history of
art in particular medieval and Renaissance religious paintings, fragments of which fill her visual journals and function
as a form of visual thinking and as a core resource for her paintings. Of interest in particular is the history and politics
that surround the female body, the representation and construction of female social identity and the idealized
representation of woman throughout art history. Recently McCaughey has been drawn to the process of ‘Active
Imagination’ a method of analytical psychology which brings unconscious content to consciousness and produce a
wide array of images, conscious memory material, feelings, symbols, figures (animals, mythological) and images and
shapes of wholeness.
The work for this exhibition has emerged organically and site specifically over a long gestation period of 18 months.
McCaughey says of this process that having a studio space in Dublin is a great privilege, it is a safe space where an
artist can disconnect from the noise outside, slow down, digest thoughts and ideas and reconnect with the self. The
artist/curator relationship was dynamic and mutually enriching characterised by a sharing back and forth about art,
painting, femininity, female agency, mental health, histories and embodied memories all of which has seeped into the
exhibition in distilled and abstracted ways.
McCaugheys work is physical, tactile, and handmade with an equal focus on its shifting materiality. Both her painting
and sculpture for this exhibition reveal traces of the body, performance, and healing activity via brush stroke, mark
making, and moulding. It is important to McCaughey that these qualities lend a symbolic dimension to the work,
emitting a certain presence of the artist despite her absence. In turn it invites the viewer to inhabit the space and
experience the work.
