James Joyce’s “The Dead”, the last installment of his 1914 collection “Dubliners” remains one of the most momentous and mystical novellas ever penned in the English language. Ostensibly about an annual Christmas dinner (hosted by two maiden aunts in turn of the century Dublin) in which the topics of music, art, literature, faith, politics and family traditions are bandied about, the story takes an unexpected existential turn at the end into the eternal questions of life itself. It is that unexpected turn that I explored with this cycle of paintings.
The exhibition for these works premiered on February 23, 2019 in an evening that also included correlating highlights from Joyce’s book as well as live a Irish harpist as the musical entertainment.
