Exploring otherness and displacement in personal and geographical contexts.
An Arts Council Schools residency in Killinaboy National School in 1995 introduced Deirdre to a section on the eastern side of Mullochmore Mountain covered with erratic boulders known to some as “The Giant’s Playground”. In autumn and springtime, the boulders cast deep, long shadows over the pavement rock. Deirdre traced the actual shifting shadows, transcribing the inky black voids onto unstretched canvases. On returning to the studio paint and dust was applied within the traced shadowlines.
Erratics are outsiders, boulders carried and deposited by moving ice sheets. The painted Erratics became a metaphorical space for Deirdre to locate her personal experience of otherness and displacement, first when living in London from 1976 – 1991, and in rural County Clare. They also pointed to the passage of rural/urban migration taken by so many, mirrored in the relocation of the awkward images of ‘otherness’ to a metropolitan gallery spaces to the Guinness Hopstore in Dublin.
Erratics were subsequently exhibited as part of the 39th EVA International Guest Programme, Little did they know, curated by Merve Elveren (2021) and as part of Between A Rock And A Hard Place at VISUAL Carlow with a newly-commissioned film in which O’Mahony discusses the background and context of making the works, and and a responsive text by artist Laura Fitzgerald.
In addition, a publication of the same name about the history of the work produced in 2021 by Askeaton Contemporary Arts has been reprinted.
