Masters in Fine Art
Michelle Hickey (Legge)
Awakenings
Michelle Hickey is a Visual Artist and Maker and balances her art practice between her native Shannon and Doolin in North Clare. She injects meaning into material to creative narrative and the subject matter influences the mediums she uses and the outcome. Her current area of interest is ‘The Galway’ – a rare native pedigree sheep breed once classed as a breed in danger of extinction is being nurtured back. With over one hundred years of provenance, the Galway is known as the original wool used to knit the iconic Aran jumper.
Awakenings is rooted in the ecological, political, and social histories of the wool industry in Ireland. Hickey’s work uncovers local resources which protests the globalisation of the wool market, currently awash with plastics, misleading labelling, and unfair conditions. She illustrates how this disempowerment of local produce has continued due to the globalisation of the wool market and the reliance on Merino wool.
The triptych engages with the body’s contact with the lanolin, a highly valued natural wool grease much like the grease in human hair. The raw fleece meeting skin, forming tensions between fleece and body, the wool in its raw state, body to body entangle, mesh together and pull apart. The felted work reminds the viewer of the beauty in material being of and from a place. An object or material produced from its native land, is imbued with the stories and histories of its site, and contains fragments of place within it, acting as a talisman and reminder of place.