Art that investigates human mourning and grief drives our most basic creative instincts. Buried in our DNA, the tears shed over death can even be seen evolutionarily in mammals and birds. Humans build tumuli, erect memorial statues, plant trees, make death masks, wear black and even throw themselves on funeral pyres. Sheila Gallagher’s art invents new materials and icons to help us grieve over death due to starvation, disease, warfare gassing and guns. Not surprisingly, her choice of media tends toward black, gray and white. There is little in her work to reassure us or bring happy memories to mind. Past atrocities recorded in her art may spur us to work to avoid historically destructive activities, but her art is not resistance, not therapy and not overtly political. The recently discovered deaths by starvation and neglect of up to 796 children at the Bon Secours Mother and Baby Home … [Read more...] about AN INTRIGUING MELANGE: SHEILA GALLAGHER’S SOUL-PULLING PAINTINGS