Éadaoin Glynn | Girl Unknown

Girl Unknown is a solo exhibition of portraits by Éadaoin Glynn, created in response to her engagement with Limerick Museum’s archival materials. Her research concentrated on over eight hundred glass plate negatives of anonymous women from the early 20th century, discovered by chance in a basement and donated to the archive in the 1990s. These fragile, often damaged plates are the only remaining traces of these women’s existence. The identities of the subjects, photographer and the reason for the portraits remain unknown.
Through her engagement with the archival material, Glynn developed a process of repetition and layering that allowed her to connect with these women who have been erased from history. Her approach of distorting and reshaping the images enabled her to create portraits that move beyond representation, reimagining a new narrative for each subject.
Glynn’s conceptual focus is on the interior lives of women, exploring hidden narratives that are often marginalised or silenced, stories that are both deeply personal and universally resonant. Her work occupies the space between abstraction and figuration, where quiet, unspoken experiences are felt rather than described. Using a variety of materials, including paint, mixed media, collage and text, she both reveals and obscures the subject, much as women’s interior lives are both visible and invisible in society. As her work moves fluidly between abstraction and figuration, the boundaries between the two become porous and expansive, creating a visual language that invites new ways of seeing and understanding

Opening Reception: Sunday April 6th 3-5pm
Opening remarks by Pauline B. Flynn