I was honoured to be asked to take part in a very special exhibition in the beautiful Glucksman Gallery in Cork City along side Fatti Burke, Peter Donnelly, Roisin Hahessy, Chris Haughton, Mary Murphy and Niamh Sharkey.
The show is curated by Tadhg Crowley and Fiona Kearney.
The Glucksman commissioned seven Irish artists to respond to different themes within the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Each illustrator’s design was carefully re created as beautiful large-scale murals by the talented team in the gallery.
Viewpoints explores the potent realm of children's literature as a place for young people to develop and understand their rights. The exhibition has been developed in partnership with UCC School of Law to consider the ways in which our book shelves unleash not just our imagination, but a critical understanding of self and the world.
Hopefully my piece speaks for itself but my approach was to illustrate 18 children from different countries / ethnicities to show that anyone from anywhere could end up in a boat like this as a result of war or natural disaster. I wanted to paint the sea and the sky in unusual colours as I can only imagine how terrifying and alien it must be to find yourself at sea in this situation, especially as a child. The phrase "I should not be here" was in my head the whole time while making it. I added the seagull as it's something I always notice when I see footage of a war or human disasters, the birds and animals living their lives completely oblivious to our often ridiculous self inflicted plights on our own species.
The show runs from 5 December 2019 - 15 March 2020 in The Glucksman, University College Cork, Ireland.
Photos by Clare Keogh