JENNIFER TROUTON: In Plain Sight
6 September – 20 October 2024
Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin

Crawford Art Gallery is delighted to loan Mater Natura: The Abortionist’s Garden (2020-21) to the Royal Hibernian Academy (RHA) for artist Jennifer Trouton's first solo exhibition in Dublin.

In Plain Sight is an exhibition that started in the historical archives with a series of stories hidden in medical records, coroners’ reports, witness statements, jury verdicts, newspaper clippings, and incriminating letters from lovers and abortion providers. Spanning two spaces – the RHA’s first-floor Pádraig O’hUiginn Gallery and Petronella Brown Gallery – the exhibition features large-scale and intimately sized paintings alongside embroideries, textiles, and artifacts.

Trouton plays with the still-life genre in compositions that are simultaneously traditional and darkly subversive. Her colour palette evokes a calm sense of nostalgia that draws in her viewers, before asking them to consider Ireland’s uncomfortable relationship with women’s reproductive rights. A relationship that is still evolving and is forever subject to the political and ideological mores of others.

Mater Natura: The Abortionist’s Garden is a series of 32 watercolour studies of herbs and flowers that have traditionally been used to induce abortion during pregnancy. Each watercolour forms part of a garden of such plants, perhaps overseen by the named figure of the title: Mater Natura (Mother Nature). Paired with these are maps of Ireland and the human female pelvis and uterus.

Jennifer Trouton, “Calendula (Marigold)” from the series Mater Natura: The Abortionist's Garden, 2020-21, watercolour on paper, 38 x 26 cm. © the artist.

This exhibition considers the women impacted by societal and religious attempts to suppress reproductive rights in Ireland. The artist highlights how, regardless of continued attempts to reduce the influence and autonomy of women, women still accessed the tools necessary to control their own destinies. In many cases, they found the objects of their own emancipation in the domestic spaces that were assigned to them. They found them in plain sight.

Crawford Art Gallery wishes to thank and congratulate Jennifer Trouton, Patrick T. Murphy, Kate McBride, and the RHA team.

Check venue for opening hours and events.

Featured artwork:

• Jennifer Trouton, Mater Natura: The Abortionist’s Garden, 2020-21.