Louisa Mahony: Hourglass Marries Egg

Flitting between abstraction and figuration, Mahony’s latest oil paintings of obscure objects echo modernist symbolism. Working on both canvas and paper, the Irish artist merges bulbous shapes with geometric patterns creating biomorphic forms that appear sculptural. The show’s title was inspired by a 1958 New York Times headline reporting on the marriage between playwright Arthur Miller and actress Marilyn Monroe: ‘Egghead weds Hourglass’. And although these works aren’t portraits, they do condense representation into emblematic arrangements.