Mairin Briody

Pulling together. Falling apart.

2023
natural and procion dyes on canvas
215 x 135cm
Courtesy of the artist

Artist bio

Mairin Briody is an emerging artist living with her young family on Wadawurrung Country in Ballarat, Victoria. Mairin's work is influenced by the history and potential of painting as a vast expanded practice, utilising material experimentation and improvisation to engage bodily narratives. Mairin recently completed a Master of Fine Art from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology and was the recipient of the RMIT Mary Oliphant Prize for Best Graduating MFA Presentation 2022. She has previously studied Art Theory, Art Curatorship and Fine Art practice and has accrued 20 years of experience in professional arts management and administration.

Artist statement

'I am interested in the experiential capacity of a painting. For a while now, I've been caught on the question; what is a painting in a world falling apart? We are hurtling toward calamity and yet we still need to get up every morning, make school lunches, go to work. It feels as if everything is in tension, and I can't bear to pull a canvas taught across a stretcher bar again. My body, like all bodies, is marinating in the tangle of this uncertain time. I want to fold, fall. To gather myself up. Let myself go.'

Mairin Briody with her artwork 'Pulling together. Falling apart' 2023. Photo: Elijah Clarke.

@mairinbriody

This artwork will be on display in the 2023 Arthur Guy Memorial Painting Prize Finalist Exhibition from Saturday 25 November 2023 until Sunday 18 February 2024.

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