A snail’s eye view of Alice Maher

THE National Self-Portrait Collection of Ireland (NSPCI), which is located in the University of Limerick campus, has acquired a second work by the artist Alice Maher, former visiting lecturer at the Burren College of Art, in Ballyvaughan.

By John Rainsford

Helmet (2003) is a photograph of the artist holding a helmet of snail shells close to her face. The picture is intended to tell the viewer more about the sitter’s interests and profession than a complete physical depiction ever could.
Ms Maher, who is a former graduate of European studies at UL, already has a piece in the collection, a painting entitled Self-Portrait: Four Views (1993).
She was born in Cahir, Tipperary, into a family of three brothers and one sister. When the fledgling National Institute of Higher Education’ (NIHE) Limerick, opened in 1972, she obtained a place.
She took lectures in architecture and art history as well as in French and political history in her chosen field of European studies. After graduation, she was employed with a paint company in Blackpool, Cork, in 1978. She also started doing art courses by night, as a pastime.
Maher studied at the Crawford College of Art in Cork. The University of Ulster followed and a masters in Fine Art. She then won a Fulbright Scholarship to the San Francisco Art Institute. She also won a Guinness Peat Aviation (GPA) Art Prize in 1990.
She can be rightly described as a polymath with mastery of traditional as well as modern media techniques. Currently, she is fascinated by animation. Carefully and exhaustingly drawing, scanning and filming the process as it bursts into life.
Her animation is often put to music, most recently collaborating with composer Trevor Knight. She claims to have no specific theme to work to and is drawn to Greek classics as much as to multimedia and modern film, seeing them all as inter-related pieces of the one jigsaw.
Recently she gave a speech to art lovers at The Woods exhibition in Limerick.
“I am not conscious of having any view of what my work is all about,” she explained. “Perhaps the human story, in all its complexity, is its central theme. I have used everything from cloth to paper, bronze, glass, nettles and even frost, as well as more accepted media like drawing. Oscar Wilde said that ‘all art is useless’ and I agree but is it the most essential useless thing in all of society?
“Certainly, it speaks to the unknown and the unknowable parts of us but it cannot be a simple choice between bread and roses. We must have both. Art and science are the twin pillars of society. Albert Einstein mixed with artists all the time. They were the only ones who could visualise what he was theorising about.”
She is currently busy with many projects including preparing for an exhibition in New York at the David Nolan Gallery in the second week of February 2011. She has previously shown at the Hayward Gallery and the Science Museum in London, as well as at the Tate Gallery in Liverpool, the Irish Museum of Modern Art and the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Her most recent work is called Metamorphosis.
“Art is a language like any other. You cannot expect to understand it straight away, just like you have to learn a bit of vocabulary and a bit of grammar to converse in French or Spanish,” she said.
“The more you look at art, the more conversant you become in its language. You don’t have to study it, just ‘talk’ it. It’s really easy and everyone can and should be able to engage with contemporary art.
“I mean everyone thought that the Impressionists were rubbish when they first emerged, and now we think they are the soul of the establishment. Yesterday’s revolution becomes today’s repression. The main thing is to keep art moving on, to keep developing and adding to it, to make the language of art richer and more available to everyone. ”
Yvonne Davis, the visual arts administrator at the university explained that in October ten new works were added to the National Self-Portrait Collection of Ireland. For some artists, Alice Maher, Neil Shawcross and Rosie McGurran, this was their second self-portrait to be included in the collection.
“The addition of second works by artists offers an opportunity to examine how an artist’s practice changes over their life or indeed how they see themselves. This year, Alice Maher adds Helmet to the collection. We are honoured to have this second self-portrait by Alice as she is one of Ireland’s foremost contemporary artists,” said Ms Davis.
Ms Maher was originally invited by the NSPCI board of trustees in the early nineties to be included in the collection.
“Alice has now chosen to include a second work as she felt it was more representative of her current work than the original work in 1993,” Ms Davis added.
She continued, “In this way, second or third works are invaluable as examples of how an artist’s practices have changed over time. Alice is now involved in animation so perhaps in years to come she may decide to include an animated film of herself.”
The National Self-Portrait Collection of Ireland was founded following the acquisition of 15 self-portraits from the estate of John Kneafsey by the NIHE in the 1970s. From these humble beginnings the collection has grown at a steady rate to some 437 works in 2009.
“The collection is a unique national resource as it reflects the changes, both social and artistic, in painting, photography and other media from the 1800s to present. Its purpose is to form a collection illustrative of self-portraiture in Ireland and of self-portraiture by Irish artists.
UL currently has more than 1,800 artworks, sculptures and decorative objects on campus. These are distributed between the university’s own collection, the National Self-Portrait Collection of Ireland, the Watercolour Society of Ireland Collection, several loaned collections including the Irish American Cultural Institute’s O’Malley Collection and the Armitage Collection.
Art collections are located throughout the campus and world-renowned artist, Sean Scully’s sculptural wall is to be seen at the entrance gate the complex.
Currently, the National Self-Portrait Collection of Ireland includes work by Sean Keating, Sarah Purser, Derek Hill, Sam Walsh, John Shinnors, Dorothy Cross and Andrew Kearney.
“The university collections are open to the public Monday to Friday but everyone can enjoy the amazing outdoor sculptures by Antony Gormley, Sean Scully, Alexandra Wejchert, James McKenna, Michael Warren, Peter Logan, Tom Fitzgerald, Marjorie Fitzgibbon, Carolyn Mulholland, Louise Walsh and others, at any time,” said Ms Davis.
For more information on UL’s art collections contact Yvonne Davis at 061 213052 or e-mail: yvonne.davis@ul.ie. Alternatively you can visit the university website at: www.ul.ie/visualarts.