My Máire

Máire Uí Mhaicín was not only a brilliant, beautiful woman, but also my perfect Mom, my matron of the arts, my biggest fan, and me hers. She died almost two weeks ago and this is a short piece I wrote about her while sitting in the ward, trying my utmost to cherish that time we had in the short weeks before she left us. I miss her terribly.


My mother is breathtaking. I'm from her, and her blood is mine. So I cherish my blood along with all of the parts of her personality that have managed to quietly trickle into me as I've grown into a woman. She's a bratty genius, a person of soft presence, who talks too much for the lungs that are now gently running out of breath.. Her womb is where I began, and is now carrying her end. With the help of medicine she is calm, sometimes irritated, a specific advisory and deliciously darkly witty..., gesturing, stretching, and dispensing wisdom with her ever glamorous wrists. Her mischievous eyes flash blue, angrily and lovingly glowing onto me, as her body fails her. I don't want her to go. Neither does she. But she's weary now, as my face touches hers, and the scent of her skin breathes in. She is so very loved, and I've never felt as loved by anyone. She'll always win. And with each breath, I try to be more like her. I fail because she, in every breath, is taking a gush of my love with her and she'll keep it. I try to catch my breath, force time to slow, and exhale.

Nifty Fifties

Been working on some 50s inspired art!
All original art works are priced at €200 framed and you can email info@ainemacken.com to get a quote for affordable printies!
Hope you enjoy!

Sharon Needles - An Obsession

She would talk to me about her life and I would be interested, looking at her beside me, dazed by the details. The corner of her mouth, for example, which was the precise location of her charm. This was where it happened, at the point where her lower lip doubled back from the upper - I had kissed it - where they divided and met. In its slow lift, the charm of a smile you do not trust, and like all the more for that.

Art Clash - THE EXHIBITION

As the sun begins to rise, I'm sitting on the floor of the hallway of an apartment, my back gloriously massaged by the ridges of a radiator, my de-heeled feet propped up on the wall, I am a human bridge sipping a strange brown syrup mixed with Club Oráiste. I look to my left and IT BEGINS AGAIN;
"What do you do?"
"I'm a painter."
"Like a house painter?"
"No, an artist."
"Oh I can't even draw a straight line, all I do are stick men."
"I don't generally do many straight lines myself."
"Yeah but I'd love to be creative. I mean I used to draw in school a bit."

Working as a artist for nearly 11 years now (allow me to introduce you to my zimmerframe), I have a long history of going to parties. (I'll be HONEST, I'm fond of a drink... I once put a bicycle in a people carrier taxi so that I could continue an evening.) I hear these parties loosen people up, allow them to try out interpretive dance rolling on the floor to Bjork's Hyperballad (and later to Kylie Minogues Slow, shhh.), and I've had the conversation above at least 47,000 times. The above is usually an introduction to a gushing speech over this persons admiration of the creative and my efforts to encourage them in that they are in fact probably creative if they have an interest and if they would allow themselves to try...and so on and slurp syrup.

AND SO, Art Clash began after a full year of careful planning. I approached The Little Green Gallery and U Bar who were oober accommodating and allowed me to host this experiment. The idea was that I would combine my experience of nightlife, not strictly that I would be a booze hound, but that I have DJed, been organised in club production and promotion, I've twirled around the burlesque and cabaret cirquit, all whilst painting my way through various exhibitions and curatorial projects. I invited a different tutor to host each week, I shall now do a fun pictorial guide, as I know if I'd read this far my concentration would have waned and I would have been itching to check for a glorious notification or @me twit-twot SO LETTUCE LOOK AT PICK CHURS!

1. Steve McCarthy; An incredible drawing class with blind drawing, a specially named cocktail (jungle juice, if you will), ridey models, and a DJ from Anseo. It was the perfect introduction to a night resplendent with unintimidating, non competitive, nightlife soaked creativity.

2. ADW - Graffiti Art Workshop

3. Gerry Lee - Art Therapist where people were encouraged to try to communicate through a conversation in drawing amounting in a large scale group artwork.

 

 4. Gaetan Billault - Doll Making

5. Ciara Scanlan, a performance artist did a workshop in speed arting, IT WAS LOVELY!! There were BALLOOONS!

6. Will St Leger - Stencil Workshop

7. Morb with Peter Dunne - an incredible introduction to shock cinema - located in an abandoned convent in Harold's Cross

8. Fanci Schmancy - Clothing Customisation workshop - making hairdryers FUN

9. ME - 1930s style cabaret watercolour life painting class - I thought it would be a catchy title, rolls off the tongue!

And FINALLY, we come to the final Art Clash for season one happening Wednesday the 20th of June in the Upstairs Space of The Copper House Gallery.

Stag&Deer, who are wonderful people and amazingly productive will be helping us to hang a show in the gallery and talk us through the practicalities of organising your own exhibitions, it'll be an opportunity to look back at what those who have come to any of the sessions have done, and will give you the title of gallery exhibited artist all through the booze fuelled goggles of the last 9 weeks! Putting up shows is always really fun too, I find myself when I'm hanging an exhibition always at some point lying on the ground and staring at the wall and seeing if it looks ok sideways, this combined with a few bubbles and the lovely Art Clash attendees should make for a perfect Wednesday evening. There will be a charge of €15 for this workshop, and they've been working hard on this workshop for months so it's bound to have a few surprises!

THEN on Thursday there will be an opening reception, with the opportunity to invite friends, family and freaks to come stare at what we've been doing!

Here's the poster for the event, please do come to either night, we can discuss your creativity!
Book your place and get all the technical information at www.artclash.net - and remember that spaces do book up fast, so hurry hurry!

This one time I made a video artwork

Frighten the Horses from Aine Macken on Vimeo.

Here's a video I was asked to make for Frighten the Horses. It's a collage of my favourite youtube videos. It was used as a visual on the night and now is on the internet so that you may use it as visuals for your night. I'm sound like that. It's long, but I really enjoyed making it. I went to see Pipilotti Rist yesterday. She does visuals, she likes to put them inside things and make things look like periods, she then tries to make you fall in love with her and her beautiful grey eyes. I didn't fall in love with her. Somebody, very wisely, described her work as lava lamp art. Many have mentioned to me that I should like her, that we would have much in common thematically. Apart from self love and a sense of mischief, I'm not sure what. Video art confuses me. Hers is quite performative. I'm not sure I want to say anything else about it. Is that wrong? This doesn't really make me seem like I'm excited about visuals, does it? Hmmm, bhfuel, up there are my kinda visuals. I especially like the starfish and anything dirty.  Have a lovely visual day with your vision, unless you're blind, but then you have a vision that I can't even understand and I'm doing that tangent thing again where I don't know when to stop typing. Kinda like when somebody swallows their own spit and flummoxes into coughs at the theatre. Mostly gin induced, let's be honest. Hey, drink gin and watch this! Later, naturally, not at 11am you lush! Byeeeeeeee!

NEGLECT TURNS PROSPEROUS (I HOPE)

WELL. Much news. If you're not my friend on facebook then you'll know nothing! If you are, you won't be reading this anyway as you've already hidden my updates many moons ago. WHO CARES?! Why am I writing? Naturally, it coincides with a hangover and trying to overcome my crippling emotions by doing something 'productive'.

Firstly, I've moved to London to be a human bean! But LADS, it's not going well. My effort to avoid the nepotism of the hills of Ireland has entered into a brief (and when I say brief I mean sitting in a cardboard box for months desperately waiting for my beard to grow so that I can comb it) introduction to the nepotism and difficulty embedded in this London Lady Life. I've made over 50 job applications in arty places, EVEN UNPAID INTERNSHIPS, and nuffing. Not a thing. Zip. London says No. I did get shortlisted for a job in an art supply shop that would mean I would have about €12 a month spending money. Excellent. (NOT EXCELLENT, I'M LYING TO YOU.) And so, as I watch my savings float float away like bubbles containing monetary tears, I've decided to try to independently do something to gather some money, particularly at these opportunistic (To quote Mariah Carey "Festive") times.

And SO, secondly, I've launched a series of digital prints to sell to real human beans at real human prices that they can afford, so that I don't lose all faith in myself and my artistic career. See some of the images I'm making into prints below. They range from A5 to A2 and are priced between €10 and €25.

I also do portraits. Did you know? Is true.... Small ones are €60, biggies are €100.
All information, pricing  and how to order, along with some real human lady paintings can be found on my Business Lady Facebook Page;
CLICK HERE AND CLICK LIKE IF YOU LIKE I WOULD LIKE YOU TO.

Gosh, is this like begging? I've never been vee good at marketing myself. But it's something I really enjoy, and I think I'm good at it, and people seem to like paintings when they buy them from me and so I'm just trying to be industrious and and and STOP JUDGING ME.