Paula McLoughlin - The conversation is broken

Wednesday 19 April - Saturday 6 May 2023 

Click here for artwork by Paula McLoughlin

The circle has long been a motif used by the artist as a metaphor for an ongoing conversation. Along with the target motif it has been used by the artist to convey never ending interactions, the meandering of thoughts the dreaminess of road trips and the desire to settle into contentment.

In this series, the artist is using these motifs as an exploration of the dysfunction of communication, exploring the breakdown of dialogue and the consequences that follow.

Each print in the series is a one-off piece, starting its life as a misprint from a previous edition. With what would normally become proofing paper as the image was broken, it has now become something new, a difficult image to resolve, a reminder that perfection is not a human state that should be aimed for. A thread of a conversation that had been broken that has now been picked up and concluded.

Having an unresolved screen-print as a starting point, the artist has created a dynamic interplay between the intentional and the accidental, the pristine and the broken. Many of the pieces feature drawn elements, glitter, subtle colour shifts with iridescence, while others are shockingly contrasted, as a visual ‘violence’. In this way, the prints themselves reflect the subtle and not so subtle breaks in communication and the conversations that are currently being had on the large stages as well as the small and intimate stages. Hopefully the resolution of the ‘broken’ prints shows potential for broken conversations to be renewed and transformed.