Kitty Leadley

This series of large-scale paintings is rooted in the hauntological and the spectral: the notion that society is loomed over by the ghost of all future cultures. Ireland is haunted by itself, possessing a psyche that yearns for a past that does not exist and a future that can never be. This zeitgeist acts as a fulcrum upon which the vision of modernity is played back against its own history, contorted. According to Jacques Derrida, there is an "essential contamination of spirit by specter”.

The works emphasise a dynamic perspective of the figure; warping the body into a transitional state. Mixed-media masks and audio soundscapes conjoin the paintings, unifying a tactile, auditory, and physical artistic output, emphasising ideals of a “put-on” culture. Conveyed through a limited palette championing blues and greens, a watery approach to the figure, and a use of scale to create a panoramic environment, placing the spectator within the work.