By Andy Spearman

I missed the official opening of Jackie Hudson Lalor’s latest exhibition, Absinthe and Absence, which took place in the Droichead Arts Centre on Saturday but I don’t particularly like exhibition openings, they’re more about the chit chat than the art. I much prefer to go along a day or two later and have a good look at what’s on show.

Which is is what I did yesterday, and I had the added bonus of being accompanied by the artist herself, Jackie Hudson Lalor who I first met about ten years ago and I’ve followed her progress ever since on what has been a very creative journey .

With this exhibition Jackie Hudson Lalor has arrived at a very interesting and important stage in her journey as an artist and as a woman not afraid to express her opinions. She has mastered various techniques, including painting, print and sculpture, to convey some interesting and important messages about being a woman in Ireland.

Droichead’s Curator in Residence, Dorothy Smith ARHA, put it well when she said of the exhibition that it “….makes visible that which we typically seek to hide from; the effects of trauma, the ignored pain of women, and the prejudice against ageing.

“This work is dedicated to the multiplicity of Irish women, their complexities, their triumphs and their beauty.”

Absinthe and Absence is a collection of work, both two dimensional and three, which tells the hard, sometimes tragic, story of being a woman and mother in the narrow-minded community that Ireland sometimes was - and still can be.

Jackie has produced some shocking images for this exhibition but then some shocking atrocities were perpetrated on the Mná na hEireann and their babies by the “people of God”.

A piece featuring finely sculpted miniature babies in sardine cans for cradles screams out for attention like a frightened child in the dark night. It is really moving and nice touch is that the “Milky Babies” as they are called sell for €120 each with €50 of that going to the Drogheda Women's and Children's Refuge.

The pain of incarceration of young women and separation from their babies who were used as a commodity by the “reverend sisters” in the Magdalene laundries is chillingly captured in a piece called The Rookery which features a reverend Mother and a group of severe looking nuns and in their midst a dejected looking soul, presumably one the “fallen women of recent Irish history.

Each piece tells its own story but is also part of a collective message which sees characters and themes recur throughout the exhibition.

Absinthe, the ruinously strong alcoholic drink that is illegal in many parts of the world but often used by women to lessen their pain and suffering, is a recurring theme.

This is an exhibition with multiple layers, there’s a lot going on here. The depiction of a swan in the exhibition poster and on view at the entrance is beautiful, but look at the title, it’s called “Zeus the Bollix”. The swan also features in a sculpture of a woman drinking absinthe.

I would highly recommend a visit to this show, you’ll find yourself drawn back again and again.

Absinthe and Absence runs until January 25^th 2025 at the Droichead Gallery which is open daily from Tuesday to Saturday from 11.00 am to 4.00 pm.

On January 22^nd there will be a special Q and A night when the catalogue wil be launched

This exhibition will travel to The Hamilton Gallery, Sligo and Strule Arts Centre, Omagh, in 2025.