Experience Strength and Hope

Over the previous two years, the artists Brian Maguire and Michael McLoughlin facilitated weekly workshops with groups of residents of Ashleigh House, a residential centre for women in recovery from drugs and alcohol, operated by Coolmine Therapeutic Community, Dublin 15.

The resulting body of work consisted of collaborations between both artists and a core group of ten women. The exhibition featured Maguire’s portraits of the participants, alongside McLoughlin’s audio work capturing elements and fragments of the women’s lives in conversation. Work by the participants involved was exhibited alongside the artist's work.

Since the very beginning of his career in the 1970s, Brian Maguire (b. 1951 Dublin) has approached painting as an act of solidarity. He operates a truly engaged practice, compelled by the raw realities of humanity’s violence against itself, and the potential for justice. Maguire’s preoccupations draw him to the margins of the art world - alternative space, prisons, women’s shelters, and psychiatric institutions - making shows in traditional gallery and museum spaces something of a rarity.