Grainne Mulligan
she/her
Tracing Thread Through Time
My practice, which encompasses paintings, drawings, print and thread sculptures, is a personal meditative exploration of maternal intergenerational relationships and the transmission of memory and ritual. Both my grandmother and mother worked with thread. When I first touched the white quilt, my grandmother had crocheted. I felt an emotional connection. A handwritten letter from her to my mother on the birth of my brother carried her voice and presence. When she passed, this quilt was placed on her body in the ritual of waking a loved one—a ritual that my sisters and I later performed when our mother died.
The quilt motif in the geometric red thread sculptures acts as an umbilical link between my grandmother, my mother and my own children and references the matriline and mitochondrial DNA in my family. The durational processes of crocheting and writing a letter, like painting and drawing and sculpture, uniquely hold memory.
Matriline 1, oil on thread and cat gut on canvas, 160cm x 140cm
Maternal Descent, oil on canvas,126cm x 170cm
Male Mitochondrial DNA, oil on canvas, 200cm x 200cm
The Pomegranate. How did I forget it? after Eavan Boland, oil on canvas, 125cm x 173cm
Matriline 2, charcoal on Fabriano paper, 170cm x 140cm
Quilt Motif, watercolour print on canvas, 170cm x 175cm
Thread Sculpture 1 with Quilt Motif, thread and catgut, 300cm x 120cm x 120cm
Thread Sculptures 1&2, thread and catgut, 300cm x 150cm x 150cm & 300cm x 120cm x 120cm
Thread Sculpture 1, from above, thread and catgut, 300cm x 120cm x 120cm
Nana's Letter to my Mother, watercolour pigment on wall, 60cm x 100cm