Certain rooms remind us of people, places, and events. This work is from a  series of mixed media works on vintage wallpaper inspired by my father’s old family home in south inner-city Dublin.  I wonder about the lives of the large vivacious family that lived within its walls. The old character-filled house hosts myriad memories and emotions.

Recreating rooms in the house from memory and photographs in vivid colour brings those past experiences and encounters with loved ones to life.  The Interior Space is the private space traditionally and historically allotted to women.  I always think of my father’s old family home as ‘Granny’s house’.  In my mind’s eye I see Granny sitting by her tiled 1930s style parlour fireplace in what she referred to as her ‘comfortable corner of the house’.  This is where she rested and liked to grapple with the ‘Crosaire’ crossword, read poetry or draw.

In my interiors I enquire into the quality of an existence lived ‘within four walls’.  Enclosure has been vital to our survival as a species. Of course, there is the knock-on effect of containment.  Nowadays the home is increasingly a gender-neutral space with the blurring of male/female roles and with larger numbers of people working from home.

Many important events, large and small, take place there.  My works range from the quiet and contemplative to the busy and patterned, to show the diversity of our experience within the home. Colour and pattern are important in my work.  The French Philosopher Alan de Botton says, ‘we are inconveniently vulnerable to the colour of our wallpaper’. I agree wholeheartedly, colour and pattern promote an atmosphere in a room to which we are susceptible, both for good and for ill, and whether or not we are aware of it.

18”x 21” Framed