Eleanor McCaughey: A sea change, into something rich and strange

McCaughey’s practice explores thematic threads surrounding the body, identity and place, using symbols and metaphors that best express personal narratives. Watery hybrids, drowning dames, flailing females, peace offerings, magnetic moons, brain fog on the horizons and empathic monsters emerge in the work.

McCaughey’s work is continually evolving through research, studio-based experimentation and current reflections on the body through lived experiences of endometriosis, infertility and menopause, out of which her conceptual concerns take shape. Looking at feminist phenomenology of art and form, this work is a personal attempt to express what it is to live in a female body. In the manifestation of this rich and strange world, the ‘woman’ arises in connection with female identity as she takes on multiple forms, as a mermaid, siren, bird, monster and negotiates the boundaries between mortal/divine, Christian/pagan, artificial and biological. Questioning the representation and construction of female social identity.

This work takes conceptual and aesthetic cues from the perpetually shifting coastal environment of Rossnowlagh in Donegal. Recording climatic occurrences while roaming, listening, and mapping, the materiality of the work has been informed by gathering observations from naturally occurring forms, textures, colour, hues, tones, and light. The paintings, sculptures and installations embody the agency of the environment and memories of place past and present.

Throughout the making process, the artist has been in correspondence with poet Jill Kenny, sharing knowledge, myths, memories and personal narratives. Eleanor and Jill crossed paths on residency at Tyrone Guthrie Centre in 2023 and found common ground through lived experiences of sickness and healing. Jill Kenny was commissioned to write a piece for A Sea Change, into something rich and strange.