(re)viewing
An exhibition of works by Majella Clancy
(re)viewing is an exhibition of current work by Majella Clancy and is an examination of painting in an expanded space. It explores social, cultural and geographical space across representations of class, gender and race. Clancy examines her own female Irish rural history by re-using old family photographs, in particular, images that depict specific class and gendered spaces and their surrounding environment (the West of Ireland landscape).
Clancy employs imagery relating to her intercultural experiences in Sri Lanka. These images explore domestic, gender and social constructs. By merging both sets of images, Irish and Sri Lankan, through paint, her practice seeks to question boundaries and cut across dichotomies as they relate to gender and cultural difference. She examines normative readings of culture, gender, space and painting practice.
Clancy’s painting is a hybrid in its process and in its articulation of space, place and cultural identity. Figurative strategies and modernist abstraction collaborate with photographic imagery, collage and screen-printing. Through the painting process these hybrid spaces become transformed, creating difference in meaning, cultural association and pictorial space.
About the Artist
Born in County Leitrim, Majella Clancy lives and works in Belfast. She is currently completing a practice-led PhD at the University of Ulster. Her work has been exhibited both nationally and internationally. She has received various awards most recently, the Arts Council of Northern Ireland Support for the Individual Artist. Her work is held in many collections including the University of Ulster and the Arts Council of Northern Ireland.
Supported by Arts Council of Northern Ireland and Belfast City Council