Yvonne Mullaney
BA (Hons) Fine Art
My work is concerned with finding a light in the dark through folklore and storytelling. I am particularly drawn to unfiltered tales, full of grotesque and rugged details that defy western standards of fairy tales and their happy endings. Such tales and legends can be found in Egyptian culture such The Bride of the Nile as and Chukchi culture such as the journey through to the maggot feeder. These stories, not yet sanitised for public consumption and print, remain metamorphic – they possess the ability to shapeshift across time and generations as they are told – existing ephemerally in places almost completely out of sight.
I have used symbolism from such stories to take the viewer on a journey from the beginning to the end of time. the boats spinning eternally in the centre of the ‘ocean’ whirl you in with the promise of sea washed treasures, away from the small wonders that go unnoticed everyday life. The boats that we put our faith in for survival are fragile, and the soft sand riddled with glass teeth not yet smoothed by the rocking tide. The closer you get to the sea, the more that is lost. Excitement and curiosity dance with unease and sadness as you float around the room. Through this I hope to show the contrasting dualities of existence – the beauty that cannot exist without the terror – and find comfort in both, rather than attempt to hide the latter.
The deeply entangled historical relationship between glass and ceramic, in that one rarely exists without the other, adds to ideas of connection and narrative within the work. Through the curation of these different works alongside the drawing I hope to create a line of flow that extends through the installation and into the public realm. Opening up the space in a non-conventional way, I hope that people will feel free to explore and formulate a more personal response to the work.
