BRIAN MAGUIRE – WAR CHANGES ITS ADDRESS
2021-02-01Spanning depictions of Aleppo, South Sudan, and Juárez, Maguire engages with the currency of conflict images. Through large-scale paintings, whose surfaces are as luminous as they are sullen, the urgency within Maguire’s work often stems from the context and histories his sources portray. From bold depictions of landscapes in the aftermath of massacres, to seemingly innocent and banal interiors, the artist brings the weight that images of war and injustice impress upon our visual lexicon into attention.
Coming of age in Ireland during The Troubles, a period of tumultuous sectarian conflict that lasted nearly three decades from 1969–1998, Maguire’s work reminds us that the consequences of an ethno-nationalist agenda then are not so different from the unrest and civil disobedience faced in the United States today. As this text is being written, far-right rioters storm the Capitol, breaching the House and Senate; the President refuses to concede to a peaceful transition of power. Like the exhibition title suggests, ‘faraway’ trauma can find itself at the doorstep of our lived experience just as quickly.
Opposite – Grow House 2, 2015
Exhibition runs through to February 13th, 2021
Rhona Hoffman Gallery
1711 West Chicago Avenue
60622 Chicago
USA
