Cork artist 'brings menopause conversation into the room'
éadaoin Cork, Estrogen At With 1 Which Lavit 'self The Portrait August (bathroom Mirror Work In Runs The Exhibition 22 Her Selfie)', Gallery, Glynn With Until Patch Summer
Standing at home in front of her bathroom mirror, artist Éadaoin Glynn decided to document menopause in a series of self-portraits.
A year later, her work has become a talking point at a Cork art exhibition.
is one of the paintings in the summer show at the city’s Lavit Gallery which runs until August 22. "I found menopause confusing. It is surrounded by silence, stoicism and often contradictory medical information,” says the Cork-based artist.
"As my daughters entered puberty, my youngest told me I was going into 'puberty in reverse'. Menopause is a confusing land.
“When I asked my GP, 'Why don’t I know more about this?', she said, ‘It is the last taboo.’ I resisted medication for several years, nervous about the idea of taking hormones .... I thought that I could get through the symptoms — the brain fog, hot flushes, aches and low mood — by myself.
"When it felt like the symptoms would never end, I eventually decided to start HRT medication. I decided to document my experience in a series of self-portraits.
"I carved my cropped torso into a discarded painting. This is how I saw myself in the bathroom mirror, as I twisted awkwardly to apply an oestrogen [hormone therapy] patch to an alternate side of my body, every three-and-a-half days."
Meanwhile, Glynn set to work on her self-portrait in acrylic on a wooden panel. The marks the patches left on her skin "fascinated" her, she adds.
"It made me think of henna tattoos, scars, stretch marks, moles and wrinkles. I cut up coloured sweet wrappers and glued them to create patches and transparent, overlapping ghost patch marks.
"I wanted to amplify and exaggerate these marks by collaging transparent pieces of vibrant plastic and framing the painting in neon."
Lavit Gallery director Brian Mac Domhnaill says the artwork "brings the conversation about menopause into the room", adding it's been "provoking great reactions". "The work highlights an important topic that is shrouded in misinformation and misunderstanding,” he says.
“Our core mission at Lavit Gallery is to promote an appreciation of art but we also do our best to challenge and surprise our audience where possible. This is sometimes difficult given our sales-based model but in larger group shows like the summer exhibition we delight in selecting an exciting and impactful piece like this.
"It is a very striking piece. The colourful background texture of the figure comes from an underlying worked-over abstract painting providing the perfect substitute for internal bodily content and external bruising and wounds, both literal and metaphorical."
Glynn originally studied literature and now, through her art practice, explores ideas of intimacy, memory and hidden female narratives.
The painter says she is interested in "quiet moments of interior life, those small pockets of contemporary society and past history, which may often be overlooked".
She is prolific on social media, particularly on Instagram, and also runs her own podcast, The Warrior Artist, on which she interviews other artists about their work.
The summer exhibition at Lavit Gallery is an annual group show featuring painting, print, photography, sculpture and craft at a variety of price points.
- See Lavitgallery