Sheelagh Na Gig #3 (2022) Malarstwo autorstwa Elizabeth Hefty-Khoury

‘Sheela na Gig’ was the embryonic beginning of a larger series of intimate works - ‘Origins’ - exploring the idea of female sexuality, fertility and motherhood through symbology and myth. Its name is not only a reference to our ‘origins’ birth, but also the confusing web of human mythological history and how we decipher it.

The Sheela na Gig is an image found carved throughout western Europe, but especially in Ireland. Incongruously ornamenting churches and cathedrals, these bizarre grotesque naked women expose hugely exaggerated vulvas. Their origins are obscure, with differing theories as to the age and purpose of these curious symbols. This obscurity is one of the reasons I find them so intriguing. Their ambiguity allows them to become something other, to evolve and devolve, to fold in upon themselves, weird anomalies seemingly out of space and time.

The series draws on my academic background in Celtic history, mythology and literature, weaving together different elements of legends and forgotten lore, using this concept of thread as a symbolic connective fuse.

Working on a small scale to create a painful intimacy, ‘Sheela na Gig’ and ‘Origins’ was originally conceived as a larger composite piece, a mosaic of facelessness, each square existing both individually and as part of the collective, just like mythological stories – pieces of an incomplete puzzle.

‘Origins’ was created in tandem with another series of works, “Mother”, which focuses on the nipple as a source of female power and oppression. Together they represent the composite parts to which women are often reduced, but through a lens of female experience. In contrast to being representations of oppression, they become symbols of empowerment.

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