The Molesworth Gallery is delighted to present the debut solo exhibition at the gallery of paintings by MIchelle Conway.
The show conists of a body of work begun in 2023 and documents the rooms - the kitchens, the parlours, the bedrooms - that were the crucible of the maternal line of Conway’s family. The number 598 references the address of the house in Upstate New York that the artist’s Italian great-grandmother bought and all succeeding generations of women in the family have occupied at some point. There are also scenes from the house where she now lives in Ireland and the house in Candela, in southeast Italy, where her great-grandmother was born, and the artist recently spent an extended period of time.
The paintings have a spectral quality, as memories of place form and dissolve on the canvas, with some details omitted or misremembered and others heightened with a flash of colour that leaps out from the muted background tones. As a painter, Conway’s process begins with darkness, which she scrapes away like an archaeologist, uncovering a sense of place as much as an actual representation of it.
Conway holds a first-class honours degree in fine art from ATU Galway (2011) and an MFA from Goldsmiths, London (2014). She has shown at the RA Summer Exhibition; the Contemporary British Painting Prize Exhibition (where she was a shortlisted artist); Éigse; Tulca; the Royal Ulster Academy; Sid Motion Gallery and Bolee Gallery (London); and Beep Biennal (Wales). She lives and works in Galway.