“Every restaurant, cafe and salon has its own atmosphere. There is an excitement you feel when you enter a place – you don’t know what kind of encounters will unfold. There will be a busyness about the place that enhances the drink or the sandwich you came to buy. It could be glamorous or respectfully silent. You leave transformed by the experience. Your hair might be shorter, you might be inspired by live music; or you could be drunk or maybe high on an interesting conversation you had with the person behind the counter. But when the people are gone, these cafes, pubs and clubs are only rooms with tables and chairs… When the shutters have been pulled down and the scent of frying food has evaporated the place becomes still.”
Bríd Higgins NíChinnéide is a figurative painter who usually paints people. She often paints from life, studying living, breathing subjects. In March 2020 she started to peer inside the windows of some of the businesses within her 5km radius. She noticed how these interiors had been changed by their emptiness. With the kind permission of the owners and managers she got a closer look. Still Until shows scenes from our recent past – painterly portraits of places that waited for our return.”
Opens Thursday July 22 and runs until August 8
