Episode 19 - Eleanor McCaughey

Liminal Gallery Podcast host, Louise Fitzjohn, speaks with contemporary artist Eleanor McCaughey to coincide with 'Swallowing Mist to Lick Your Mouth' a solo exhibition in our Main Space at Liminal Gallery in Margate.

‘Swallowing Mist to Lick Your Mouth’ is the first UK solo show by Dublin based artist Eleanor McCaughey. This immersive solo exhibition delves into the complex terrain of female identity, presenting the artist's multifarious practice including installation, paintings, sculptures, and a sound collaboration with Irish sound artists Bosca Nua, offering an exploration into the history, politics, and societal constructs of the female body and identity.

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McCaughey’s work has evolved into a multi-layered narrative that intertwines theological and humanistic notions. After personally navigating through challenging years of recovery from unsuccessful surgeries related to endometriosis and infertility, the artist’s work metamorphosed into a study of the historical and political landscape encircling the female form.

“My work is physical, tactile, and handmade with importance on its shifting materiality. Both my painting and sculpture reveal traces of the body, performance, and healing activity through brush stroke, mark-making, and moulding. It is important to me that these qualities lend a semiotic dimension to the work, emitting a certain presence when the author isn't in the room.”

‘Swallowing Mist to Lick Your Mouth’ was created during a residency at the Tyrone Guthrie Centre in Monaghan, Ireland, and is a visceral and emotional response to the land.

Eleanor McCaugheys practice is an evolution of multi-faceted installations, including painting, sculpture, video and sound. There is an important focus on material properties, capturing an earth-bound quality to the work.

The work is developed with an interest in readings of religion and the function & structures of faith. Centering on the idea that faith offers the thought that one might be able to transcend the limitations of physical and how agents of faith act as a channel for petition.

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McCaughey often works in collaboration with artists to help create soundscapes for video works and installations. The approach to collaboration and the making of physical environments, is an answer to the translation of restorative experience into sound, space & form.

Born in Dublin, Ireland, McCaughey studied at TU, Dublin. Selected exhibitions include Woman in the machine, Visual Carlow, 2021, Super Market Art Fair, Stockholm, 2021, What remains of this place?, online exhibtion, 2020, Vignettes, Richard Heller Gallery, LA USA, 2019 and Tulca ,Sytonic State, Galway, 2018.

Eleanor McCaughey is a recipient of the Irish Arts Council Bursary Award 2021, The Temple Bar Project Award 2021, The Fingal County Council Bursary 2019 and the Next Generation Award 2018. Her work is represented in the OPW, Arts Council Ireland art collection and private collections in Ireland, Europe, United States and Canada.

Read the full press release here:

www.liminal-gallery.com/swallowing-mist-to-lick-your-mouth

Contact us for all questions and enquiries: [email protected]

Follow us on Instagram: @liminal_gallery

With original music by Lorenzo Bonari.

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