Catherine Marshall assesses the unwavering artistic journey of Maria Simonds-Gooding in advance of her retrospective in Dublin
Maria Simonds-Gooding’s artworks often look like maps and they unfailingly refer to the landscape and more especially to agriculture. They are monuments to mankind’s struggle to survive and claim a place in the natural world, but the farmer who made the enclosures or dug the water holes is as absent from her work as waterfalls are in the desert. Simonds-Gooding’s landscapes are occupied by humans by implication only. For all the references to the basic elements of agriculture, the human presence in her paintings, plaster and aluminium works is that of the artist herself and of her spiritual journeys in search of encircling, protective boundaries, water to feed her roots. Deeply private as she is, the artworks, like those of all great artists, offer the most direct route to her psyche and her creative drives.
With the recent passing of Ronald Tallon, Seán Ó Laoire reflects on the end of an era and remembers Michael Scott, founder and charismatic figurehead of Scott Tallon Walker
The class of 2014 is looking anew to the tangible joys of creativity, in contrast to its documentation, writes Gerry Walker of the trends emerging from this year’s graduate shows.
Carissa Farrell is transfixed by the shard-like glass birds and decayed flowers that combine to fascinating effect in Graham Gingles’s signature boxes at the Hamilton Gallery, Sligo
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