Who is Bridie?

If people make places, what happens to the bonds that shape our identity and sustain community, when social fabrics are fractured by unexpected upheavals or migration?

 

Referencing the truism that most peoples, or their antecedents, have faced conflict, Brian Flynn’s new series of paintings Who is Bridie? depicts both familial rupture and fresh growth, heralding lost pasts and future presents that distill the positive from pain.

 

With a studio practice that recalibrates human vulnerability, Flynn mines tension and turmoil emanating from his family’s fight for independence during the Troubles, aka Northern Ireland’s civil war. Trading on both personal and universal elements of conflicted humanity, Flynn’s shadowy and enigmatic figures evoke emotive qualities that offer resolve, mortal fibre, and enduring contemplation.

 

- Dick Averns, co-curator