Máire Gartland

"Renaissance Woman", Watercolour on Plaster.

‘There is only one way to behave if you’re a poet and an angel breathes in your ear. You just have to get up with your brush and pen and begin.’

From Fearful Symmetry – a mirror book by Máire Gartland.

Much of Máire Gartland's work is about the telling of stories. These are stories softly told, sometimes whispered, sometimes only half-heard. They are illustrated, unravelled and retold by the artist using a range of formats so that their many elements may be explored.

The artist has used mirror books for many years as a way of interpreting myths and legends told by women all over the world. Using watercolour and ink on hand-made paper, they incorporate backwards writing and bisected images. At first glance they are an enigma, but when a mirror is used, they are transformed into picture books filled with poetry, story and magical illustrations

Images from these stories are explored on canvas and stained glass. Larger canvases use both the jewel like colours of illuminated manuscripts and the inky darkness of the gothic tale. They, too, feature mirror-writing, though it is layered and translated into many languages – a form of encryption that allows the artist to reveal her thought processes yet keep them private – like hiding a message in the knot of a tree. Smaller canvases illustrate themes that recur in Gartland’s work: Recipes, magic cauldrons, small animals, dogs and large, dark birds.

The artist describes stained glass as ‘a perfect medium, mysterious, secretive, ancient and full of possibilities.’ The stories she tells are redemptive. They are about light being rescued from captivity. Light boxes, in which images etched and painted onto glass are collaged together, allow form and content to compliment each other.

Sarah Kavanagh 2005

Máire Gartland was born and brought up in Ireland. She studied at the National College of Art in Dublin, Trinity College Dublin, and The University of London.

She has exhibited in group shows in Ireland, Spain, Italy and the UK.

She has had several solo shows in London and Kerela, India. This is her second show at the Tricycle.

She currently teaches art, part-time at a special school in Ealing, West London.

email:- maire@minnie87.fsnet.co.uk