SARAH DRINAN

Drinan continues, “I’m also intrigued by the body as a site where the mythical and the everyday intersect — where the ordinary bodily acts of living, such as breathing, sensing, creating, eating, sleeping, and intimacy, can become moments of metamorphosis. ... Both the body and painting become sites of perpetual becoming and a space of uncertainty, where nothing is fixed, and where transformation unfolds, even within the confines of the everyday.”

Drinan’s paintings explore the complexities of the body — its vulnerability, desires, unease, resistance, and messiness. Drawing on her background in mental health occupational therapy and the rich history of figurative painting, she explores the body as a site of physical and emotional experience. Her fleshy compositions are inspired by a diverse image bank, including sketches, personal snapshots, internet archives, historical figurative art, digital media and modelling apps. Drinan’s paintings gesture towards a body rooted in sensation and transformation, reflecting on the fluidity of identity and the tension between constraint and liberation. The figures in Drinan’s paintings mutate and shift, refusing to settle into static forms. This is inspired by mythical shapeshifters from Irish folklore, such as the selkie, changelings, and the púca. Like these creatures, Drinan’s figures are always mutating, fluid, and ambiguous, reflecting the complexity of bodily experience.