Ashbourne's Toradh Gallery hosts Suburban Shadows art exhibition
The artist, Mary Burke, is currently holding her 14 th solo exhibition in the Toradh Gallery in Asbourne, which runs until 17 th July next.
The artist is unique among her peers as she specializes in oil pastels addressing life in suburban Dublin. This series of 16 large-scale works is divided into exterior and interior paintings that examine the duality of city life from the point of view of a commuter who leaves home at 7am, passing on his way rows of similar houses. The shadows are crisp in the morning light and these beautifully observed images show the endless variety of seemingly 'standard' residencies.
The second group of paintings reveal life in the interior of the house and pastels such as Twitching Net Curtains blurs the divide between interior and exterior. The title of the work suggests the veil of privacy (the net curtain) being drawn aside to monitor the coming and going of ones neighbours, the viewer observing without being observed.
The interior images show tighter compositions of narrow circulatory spaces, yet Twitching Net Curtains is cropped, focusing the spectator's vision on the lower part of the window. One's attention is captured by the car in the garden, but the identity of the spectator is shielded by the opaque curtains. Yet it is also possible that the observer is being observed, as driver of the car may also be watching the householder and scrutinizing his activities.
While the chief characteristic of Mary Burke's previous exhibition, Semidetached Reflections, was the randomness experienced by the fleeting glance, the current selection of work addresses the subject of suburbia from a different perspective. It contrasts images of morning and evening, interior and exterior, and urban and rural.
This series of oil pastels suggest a narrative, an inspection of similarity and difference, an examination of shared experience of urban living and ultimately a questioning of activities that take place behind the façade of respectability.
Maebh O'Regan
This review first apeared in the Meath Chronicle on 20.06.2009