Straight Out of Ireland

Group Show, Philadelphia, USA, 2022

Images titled from left to right, top to bottom:

  1. I brought you into this world, I can take you out just as easy, 2022

    Acrylic on wood panel. 30cm x 30cm

  2. If you fall and break your legs, don't come running to me!, 2022

    Acrylic on canvas. 30cm x 30cm

  3. Ah, the dead arose and appeared to many! 2022

    Acrylic on canvas. 30cm x 30cm

  4. After four drunken Knights on the town, would you look at what the cat dragged in?, 2022

    Acrylic on wood panel. 30cm x 30cm

  5. You won’t be happy until you break it, 2022

    Acrylic on wood panel. 30cm x 30cm

  6. What time do you call this?, 2022

    Acrylic on wood panel. 30cm x 30cm

  7. Where do you think you’re going?, 2022

    Acrylic on canvas. 30cm x 30cm

  8. There’s enough dirt in those ears to grow potatoes, 2022

    Acrylic on canvas. 30cm x 30cm

  9. You’d forget your head if it wasn’t screwed onto your shoulders, 2022

    Acrylic on canvas. 30cm x 30cm

  10. Do you think I came down in the last shower?, 2022

    Acrylic on canvas. 70cm x 30cm

RETURN TO THE MOTHERLAND, (Series) 2022

Coming Home

Philadephia, USA was the battleground for the famous chess game Garry Kasparov vs Deep Blue, 1996 – 1997. This series of 12 games marked a turning point in history for being the first time a reigning world chess champion ever lost against a supercomputer. The ultimate battle of human vs machine (artificial intelligence) is explored in these 12 paintings revealing the fragility of the human race.

Irish Humour

Each painting is a response to the chess games and the battles incurred on the chessboard between the human and the machine. The titles are spoken in my own mother’s tongue, the Irish humour and the mannerisms of the Irish mammy. The titles exist as a human battleground of control between me and my mother, in her attend to reign me in as youngster. In essence, these paintings are hostile battlegrounds, interfusing the Irish humour with the conflicting desire for rights and freedom to roam, and technology/ A.I. The aim of this series of paintings is to consider the fabric of the land, even transporting one back to an imagined time in Ireland. The paintings are weaving memories to a distant place, full of Irishisms, storytelling, and hardships, almost like a fictional imaginative land succumbed to capitalism, machines and modernisms.