Thank you for the lovely review by Professor Harry McMahon on my solo exhibition, 'Time-Lapse', currently on show in the Abbey Arts Centre, Ballyshannon, Co.Donegal.

‘Time-Lapse’

A solo exhibition by Maria Noonan-McDermott

‘Presence’ and ‘absence’ seem at first thought to be two different things, two sides of the same coin, related but separated, never to be encountered together. It’s either one or the other; either the object of contemplation, whatever it is, is there, or it is not.

Maria’s exhibition explores this boundary between presence and absence in a profoundly personal realm, her experience of and reaction to her mother’s protracted journey from life, through the onset and overwhelming burden of Alzheimers, into death and beyond.

Some of the paintings shout out the pain experienced on contemplation of her mother’s absence. The empty chair is still with Maria, there to be sat upon and brought to life again as a place of rest; but the chair is unoccupied, full of nothing but memory. Her mother is present in that chair, and absent, at one and the same time. In a second painting, a beam of soft light illuminates the chair …. an artistic gesture there for a purpose. But what purpose, to bring her mother back, or allow her to leave? These are paintings dealing with profoundly difficult questions, and with a tenderness that must not be left unseen.

Other paintings evoke the presence of others, others in her mother’s presence. Are they angels? Are they relatives? Are they old friends? Or are they witnesses to the pain that Maria and her mother have gone through separately and together?

Whether we like it or not, we all are witnesses to the pain of others. We react in different ways: some turn and move away; some sympathise from afar; some empathise and offer support; others stand alongside in solidarity and bear witness.

Maria’s paintings bear witness to the private pain she and her mother have gone through. They also speak a universal truth, that sufferers of Alzheimers, and their carers, cannot be left to suffer on their own. They cannot be absent from our lives. They are present.

Professor Harry McMahon

Feb 13th 2022