Annie Nevin: Splendid Isolation

Splendid Isolation is a Scottish tune by Brendan McGlinchey. Such an appropriate title when it was brought to the Dunedin Fiddle Orchestra during the Covid Lockdown in New Zealand in 2020. It’s a great tune and continues to evolve.

Splendid Isolation, the first painting in the series, was actually commenced prior to lockdown and by chance features the Chinese flag, which happened to be hoisted that day. As a haberdashery devotee I am interested in lush interiors, the spaces in which people live and the way they make them their own.

While interior paintings are often void of people, they are about the individuals who live in them. One of my favourite contemporary artists in Britain is Turner Prize winner Grayson Perry. Within his art he is able to cast an anthropological eye over society by looking at the way groups, tribes and individuals create meaning within their environment and how that contributes to identity and kinship. Within my past employment I have had access to hundreds of personal spaces and I have always noticed, indeed interpreted and been amazed by, the variation in human ownership and creativity.

There is a degree of fun, extrapolation, and artistic interpretation within this series of paintings. The objects and spaces depicted could be viewed as family groups, unusual alliances or collective bubbles.

How we adorn our world, or not, is very important to me as an artist. When our world abruptly became smaller, the interior world suddenly became of greater importance and meaning, and this is what my paintings are about.