IMMA presents a series of new paintings by Irish artist Anne Madden. This series comes in the wake of a seven decade long international career during which Madden has produced a powerful and distinctive body of work whose enduring themes are concerned with the transformative forces and cyclical nature of life and experience.

Seven Paintings is a suite of paintings by Anne Madden (b.1932) painted during the Corona pandemic. Confined to home rather than working in her studio the artist painted in isolation immersed in activity, oblivious to time, following where her senses led her. Painting more figuratively than in the past Madden continues to be “in thrall to the infinite possibilities of the transformative power of paint”.

This series comes in the wake of a seven decade long international career during which Madden has produced a powerful and distinctive body of work whose enduring themes are concerned with the transformative forces and cyclical nature of life and experience. Madden’s exploration of ancient forms and mythologies give potent shape and expression to the anarchic forces and uncertainties of the 21^st century.

Antigone, Ariadne and Daphne are archetypal women whose voices are not silenced, in spite of their fate, who urgently connect with existential and feminist perspectives today. In The death of Anne Lovett (1968-1984), a recent donation to IMMA, the artist brings into universal focus the Irish teenager’s tragic death in childbirth in a religious grotto and the inadequacy of the patriarchal establishment’s response. While in the work, Antigone buries her brother (2020-21), points to family relationships, gender roles, racism and politics, so very prescient and relevant to the current war in Ukraine.