“Having private, for-profit care goes against all you are trying to achieve for children in care,” says Terry Dignan, a spokesperson for charities that run children’s homes.
Councils are reluctant to use the single-stage process because they take on more risk if something goes wrong, says Sinn Féin TD and housing spokesperson Eoin Ó Broin.
Rebecca Deegan wanted us to look at homelessness differently, so she painted this, about “the vulnerability and isolation felt by those who have nothing”. It’s the latest in our series on works by Dublin artists.
Welcome Home By Rebecca Deegan Oil on canvas, 12 x 16 inches
1. This work is about . . . the romanticism of dire situations, in this case, having no place to call home. Finding safety in less-than-comfortable places, and having faith in a higher power. I wrote a poem to go with it, which reads, in part, “The moon will always guide you, the fog will always hide you, the sun will always warm you, and the stars are those which have borne you.”
2. I made this work because . . . I wanted to create an artwork that tells the viewer about homelessness in a different way to how they would normally view homeless people. This piece was specifically created for an event hosted by Common Grounds Collective to raise money for Focus Ireland.
3. I hope when people see this work they will . . . enjoy the aesthetic and romanticism of the painted subject before realizing the true situation that the artwork is depicting; the vulnerability and isolation felt by those who have nothing.
4. In terms of art history, this work . . . shows the viewer about modern-day issues, but in a more idyllic, dream-like setting.
Curios [sic] About is a series featuring works by Dublin artists, curated for us by our friends at the Square in the Circle blog, and hosted there as well as here.
Each artist is asked to submit an image of one work and answer a set of questions about it. We’d love it if you’d submit something you’ve made.
Sculpting through assemblies of objects is the main aspect of his practice, he says. A scarecrow-like figure wearing a Mickey Mouse t-shirt, with cigarette butts, and a Madonna cassette, for example.
“Pitched as ‘avante hyperpop’, her music can sound like what Mariah Carey might cook up if she spent more hours hanging out in video arcades and reading radical literature.”