Munster in 30 Artworks: No 14 - Alice Maher’s Helmet, at University of Limerick
Helmet is one of thirteen self-portraits Maher produced for an exhibition at the Green on Red Gallery in Dublin in 2003. (c) Alice Maher 2003. Lambda print. Picture: Kate Horgan.
The National Self-Portrait Collection of Ireland, on permanent display at the University of Limerick, comprises more than 400 works by artists born in or resident on the island of Ireland.
As the collection’s title suggests, most of the works are studies of the artists’ faces, in the mediums of painting, drawing, sculpture, print and photography. However, one of the most striking images is Helmet, a photographic work by the Co Tipperary-born artist Alice Maher, in which her face is not actually visible at all, covered as it is by a ‘helmet’ of snails’ shells.
Helmet is one of thirteen self-portraits Maher produced for an exhibition at the Green on Red Gallery in Dublin in 2003. They were subsequently shown at the Purdy Hicks Gallery in London and the Millennium Court in Portadown.
“When I made this series, I was at what felt like a midpoint in my life,” says Maher, a graduate of the Crawford College of Art and Design in Cork and the University of Ulster in Belfast.
“I was in my forties and had just got married, and it seemed like a good time to work on a self-portraiture project. I thought that, to make a true image of myself, I wouldn’t use an expressive medium, like drawing, I’d use a medium that is traditionally used for portraiture… photography.
“The images are performative, in a way. Someone might compare the series to the work of the American artist Cindy Sherman. But she dresses up as different personae, as Hollywood idols and so on. Whereas, in my series, this is actually me, the artist, wearing my own clothes.”
Each of the thirteen images features Maher with objects on her body; snails, twigs, berries, a necklace of lambs’ hearts. “I was passing through the English Market in Cork one afternoon when I saw a mountain of hearts. I bought a load of them, and kept them in the freezer for years before I figured out what to do with them.”
The snails she picked up in hedgerows, keeping them in boxes in the studio in Dublin she worked in at the time.
“They’d come out at night, and make ‘paintings’. I’d put colouring in their oatmeal, it was perfectly safe; they’d leave colourful trails of slime on the paper I’d laid out for them. Then I’d use the images in a print, or whatever. I was interested in snails because they’re so despised.
"I’m generally interested in the marginalised, and they really are hated. But they’re fascinating. Each of them is entirely different, if you look at their shells.
"There isn’t one snail shell in the entire universe that’s quite like another. I like the fact that they carry their home on their back, they don’t need anything else. And they’re hermaphrodites, though they have to meet another in order to procreate.”
For Helmet, she covered a hat in empty snail shells, thinking she’d wear it on her head for the photograph.
“But it just reminded me of one of those stupid swimming caps. So then I held it over my face, and I liked how it looked like some kind of an animal’s snout. Portraiture, for women, is all about beauty, and judgement. It’s like you’re judging the face. So when you don’t show your face, you’re taking power over the image.
"In this image, I am both the artist and the model. I’m the protagonist, and I have the control.
“The series is influenced by Renaissance portraiture, in terms of the red backgrounds, and showing the subject in profile. In the Renaissance era, women and girls were painted in their finest clothes and jewellery; it was almost like they were being advertised for sale.”
As with all the works in this series, Maher had help from the photographer Kate Horgan in producing Helmet. “I designed the images, the lighting, the whole set-up, and then Kate took the actual photograph.”
Before studying Fine Art, Maher completed a BA in European Studies at University of Limerick, and she was delighted to see Helmet become part of the National Self-Portrait Collection. She had actually given work to the collection before, a painting of three views of the back of her head she completed in 1993.
“But when I made this series, I approached UL again, and asked them to take Helmet for the collection. I just felt it was something different, and more representative of where I was as an artist.”
In 2009, Helmet inspired a project called Seven Steps by the performance artist Amanda Coogan. “Amanda let live snails slither all over her face,” says Maher. “They tried to hide in her hair and everything. That’s a real performance artist for you.”
These days, Maher is based in Co Mayo. She is one of Ireland’s busiest artists, exhibiting regularly here and in Europe and America. This year alone, her work has featured in the exhibitions Collage: A Political Act at the Ulster Museum; Who Will Write the History of Tears at the Warsaw Museum in Poland; and the 192nd Annual Exhibition at the Royal Hibernian Academy in Dublin.
One of her recent projects was Nine Silences, a book she produced with the poet Doireann Ní Ghríofa in 2018.
“We worked on that with the printer Jamie Murphy, who uses traditional letterpress and woodblock methods. I’ve now been asked to produce a one-off artist’s book for the National Gallery of Ireland, for a project that looks at the correspondence and scrapbooks of six Irish artists in their collection: Grace Gifford Plunkett, Sarah Purser, Sarah Cecilia Harrison, William Orpen, Jack B Yeats and Aloysius O’Kelly. I’m working with Jamie on that; our book will respond to the artists’ archives.
“Harrison, in particular, is a fascinating character. She was a wonderful artist, and the first woman to be elected to Dublin City Council, but you never hear much about her. Hopefully, this project will help change that.”
For Maher, it seems, an interest in the marginalised will always bring rewards.
