The New Everyday and recent works is a solo exhibition of paintings and drawings I executed while living between France and Ireland from summer 2019 to spring 2021. The subject matter of the exhibition is largely inspired by personal and media events which had significance for me.
Summer 2019: The Amazon burned. From thousands of miles away, it was impossible not to experience the sear through the world’s interested media; the trapped anguish of trees and creatures soldered together after the advancing line of fire had torched greedily through. Opaque grey oceans of smoke and ash, churning and twisting in the air. And afterwards, bleak, lost graveyard of jet black stumps; far, far more silent than the interior of lifeless lungs.
The other advancing surge, namely the pandemic has called up our most primal fears. Panic and rules and regimes, new norms, whispers, accusations, theories, new language and social practices that feel surreal. The loss of autonomy and liberty and bleak aloneness and the dismantling of long held structures.
I see these works as snippets, comments. There is no intention to politicise or take sides. I am trying to make sense of my own feelings through creativity: they are comments directly from the gut.
These are spontaneous and considered responses to whatever felt worthy of comment. I also just like drawing particular objects which make regular appearances in my works: notably, the body, flowers and animals.
Suzy O' Mullane 2021
