Alice MaherListen to Alice talk about The Snail Chronicles
Listen to an audio description of Double Drawing
Listen to an audio description of Fever Bush
Alice Maher produces predominantly sculptural work, using a wide range of material from the traditions of cast bronze to the more discomforting natural materials such as briars, thorns, dead bees, lambs’ tongues, human hair and snails. Maher is also equally recognised for her works on paper and canvas, using print, charcoal and acrylic.
The Snail Chronicles are a set of five etchings produced in 2004. After feeding live snails a diet of vegetable dyes, Maher used the drawing made by the coloured snail trails and added her own dream-like imaginings to the nebulous swirls and marks made by the snails. The prints express Maher’s fascination with the minutiae and largesse of the natural world,
‘I always find that the smallest thing, a small insect, … the kind of marks they make reflect the gigantesse of the cosmos. So that swirl looks like a star system. The smallest thing in the universe reflects the largest.’ 1
Born in Ireland in 1956, Alice Maher currently works in County Mayo.
1. ‘How do you know?’ Alice Maher, In conversation with Emily Mark FitzGerald, 7 June 2007, Stoney Road Press
