THE MIDDLE FLOOR SERIES
His Frisking was at evening hours,
For then he lost his fear …
a solo exhibition of artworks by
MARGO BANKS
Date: 27th November – 10th December, 2018
Official Opening: Tuesday 27th November at 7.00 pm
His frisking was at evening hours,
For then he lost his fear;
William Cowper
Inspired by William Cowper’s poem ‘Epitaph on a Hare’this exhibition sees Margo Banks accent her ancestor’s land, mythology and indigenous animals. Margo’s strong connection to her mother and family place has always played heavily on her work. In big, boisterous drawings she tells the many stories of her mother; her childhood, her land and its rich folklore tales.Her drawings are the remembrance and the expression of both these stories and of the changes seen in the landscape of Teeromoyle, South West Kerry – her mother’s place. Banks returns here often to sketch and walk the field saying ‘my mother’s past is my past’.It is a sort of time-machine for her; sometimes joyous, sometimes oppressive; veined with tragedy and shadows from harsher times. It’s moods infect her.
“Painting the field sometimes makes me feel snug, warm and sheltered; and other times exposed, vulnerable and turbulent.”
In this new series of works Margo captures the totemic animals particular to her mother’s hillside. There is nothing particularly cute or sentimental about Banks’ ‘beasts of the field’. They shimmer and abound with edgy character; with an elemental, almost mythic presence. Her signature hares, based on the subspecies lepus timidus hibernicus Irish hare, are pooka’s of a kind. Glowering, startled or pensive, they frisk, skip or careen on their spring loaded hind limbs; or simply squat, sphinx-like. Often embedded in poetry Margo says of these animals wild and mysterious presence:
“They just have this otherness about them. They share the world with us, but they don’t seem really aware of us.”
