Alice Maher

109 Alice Maher ARHA (b.1956) TRYST (THE EARTHLY GARDEN), 2009 charcoal on paper 152 by 102cm., 60 by 40in. Alice Maher's drawing Tryst (the Earthly Garden) 2009 Charcoal onPaper, is her response to Joseph O'Connor's Pages from an AlienDictionary. An interpretation of Article 1 of the UDHR, the story'scentral theme is love. This lot is accompanied by a framed description of the artwork incalligraphy by Edward Kelly. €5000-7000

Alice Maher (b.1956) LOVERS, 2007 charcoal on Arches paper 152 by 104cm., 60 by 41in. Purdy Hicks Gallery, London; Private collection Green on Red Gallery, Dublin, 2007; Purdy Hicks Gallery, London, 2007; 'Natural Artifice', Brighton and Hove Museum; Djanogly Art Centre, Nottingham, 2007; 'Alice Maher: The Night Garden', RHA Gallgher Gallery, Dublin, 14 September - 28 October 2007 Lovers is an emblematic work from Maher’s ‘Night Garden series’ which draws inspiration from the intricately detailed masterpiece, The Garden of Earthly Delights, 1503-1504 by Hieronymus Bosch. It is a fitting source of inspiration for Alice Maher whose work is rooted in folklore and fairy tales as well as medieval and cultural history. Similar to the Dutch artist’s triptych, which is rich with enchanted scenes of carnal desire, Maher’s ‘Night Garden’ works explore and question the perils of life’s temptations through the medium of charcoal and pencil embodied in the profiles of what she calls ‘bestiary’. These ‘bestiary’ figures are fusions of human, animal, bird and fruit combinations as depicted by Bosch in his interpretation of the Fall of Mankind. Maher then embellishes the negative spaces created by these creatures with decorative patterns and motifs ranging from such diverse sources as eighteenth century wallpaper to Pompeian panels and contemporary headscarves. The fragility of these ‘beasts’ is reinforced by the artist’s choice of medium; the delicate charcoal dust. The Night Garden Drawings continue to influence Maher’s work and have provided her with fertile material for her forthcoming solo exhibition entitled, ‘The Music of Things’, which will take place in the Green on Red Gallery, Dublin, 12 November to 23 December, 2009. This new body of work will comprise “film drawings” (a new departure for Maher), limited edition prints and two sculptural works.

Alice Maher (b.1956) exhibition label on reverse charcoal on paper 181 by 151cm., 71.2 5 by 59.5i 'Knot: Alice Maher Draws from the Collection', Hugh Lane Municipal Gallery of Modern Art, Dublin, 21 April to 10 June 1999 This work was illustrated on the cover of Paul Durcan’’s celebrated work, Greetings to Our Friends from Brazil: One Hundred Poems, Random House, 1999, UK, pp. 272. Exhibition review by Dorothy Walker, Sunday Times, 2 May 1999, illustrated Alice Maher has long been interested in myths, fairy tales and childhood games, and frequently explores these themes in her work. This drawing belongs to a series of four monumental pieces entitled Coma Berenices (Bernice's hair), which the artist produced in response to a residence at the Hugh Lane Gallery. In 1998 Maher was invited to curate an exhibition of works on paper from the permanent collection at the Hugh Lane. After several months of sifting through the collection, she selected a diverse group of thirty-nine drawings and watercolours ranging from George Chinnery to Jack Yeats. She was particularly inspired by two works: Paul Klee's Anima Errante and Keith Henderson's Sleep Works which are, in Maher's words “from the opposing poles of art history” Alice Maher, quoted in the Hugh Lane exhibition catalogue, 1999, p. 58). Dorothy Walker, reviewing the exhibition, wrote of Maher's four drawings: “Alice Maher is the superb draughtswoman” of the age in this medium. Her huge charcoal drawings of women's hair are feats of dense, obsessive drawing unequalled in contemporary practice...The drawings repeat Klee's labyrinthine theme in taking the errant line into rich, dense coils of hair. Her obsession with women's hair is a feminist stance, illustrating how the ‘crowning glory’’ represents women's identity...The drawings are superb: the fine lines represent as closely as possible the reality of the subject in scale and appearance, while retaining the intrinsic character of a drawing...”Coma Berenices relates to the myth of Beatrice, who sacrificed her hair to the gods for the return of her husband from the wars. She was rewarded for what was seen as this supreme sacrifice by being placed in the skies as a constellation of stars, where she shines to this day.

charcoal on paper EXHIBITED Dublin, The Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane, Knot - Alice Maher Draws from the Collection, 1999, illustrated in the exhibition catalogue; Boston, McMullen Museum of Art, Irish Art Now: From the Poetic to the Political, October - December 1999, with tour to Art Gallery of Newfoundland and Labrador and Chicago Cultural Center, no.17, illustrated in the exhibition catalogue.

CATALOGUE NOTE
'The giant coils of Coma Berenices are seen from a distance clearly as images of entwining hair, while up close they become all-enveloping curtains of line and energy. They are knots of drawing that shift between the gigantic and the miniature, the single and the multiple image. But most of all they are knots of the labour and time, memory and longing that went into their making.' (Alice Maher, 1999, in exh.cat. op.cit, p.59) The series of four monumental Coma Berenices were the result of the period the artist spent in residence at The Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane in 1998 when she was specifically asked to look at The Hugh Lane's collection of works on paper. She was particualarly inspired by Keith Henderson's Sleep and Anima errante by Paul Klee, 'two works from the opposing poles of art history' (Maher, op.cit., p.58). Born in Cahir, Co. Tipperary, Maher studied at the University of Ulster, Belfast and at the San Franciso Art Institute in California. Amongst many other important exhibitions, her work was included in Irish Art of the Eighties at the Douglas Hyde Gallery, Dublin; Strongholds: New Art from Ireland at the Tate Gallery, London and Art, Grandeur, Nature at Seine Saint-Denis, Paris. Her work is also held in the permanent collection of museums such as the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin; The Hugh Lane, Dublin and in the Collection of the Arts Council of Northern Ireland.

Charcoal on paper 152 by 102cm., 60 by 40in. Purdy Hicks, Gallery, London, 2006; ````Alice Maher: The NightGarden', RHA Gallagher Galleries, Dublin, September2007