CAG.3210 Eithne Jordan, Anatomy Room V, 2022, oil on linen, 97 x 130 cm. Purchased, the Artist, 2022. © the artist.

WORK OF THE WEEK!

Currently featured in BODYWORK, Eithne Jordan’s Anatomy Room V (2022) presents a seemingly unpeopled institutional interior.

On closer inspection, however, the presence of the human form is implied or apparent through a skeletal figure, model of a head, and half torso of a medical teaching aid. In the background, cadavers may be beneath white sheets on a line of tables, while a shiny stainless-steel table in the foreground, with somewhat ominous yellow bucket to collect ‘spills’, contextualises the room.

Anatomy Room V responds to a working and teaching space at the Royal College of Surgeons, Dublin. As with her other interiors, Jordan includes rather than omits its functional objects – such as clinical waste bins, anatomical models, blackboards – to create a particular mise en scène or ‘staging of an inanimate performance.’ Permitted to access the space when not in use, the artist captures its stillness, order, and hygiene in a moment between semesters.

Eithne Jordan (b.1954) lives and works in Dublin and in the Languedoc, France. Her work since the 1980s has moved from examinations of her inner life to observations of an external world. She has exhibited widely in Europe and is a member of Aosdána and the Royal Hibernian Academy, where she holds the position of Keeper. Curated by Margarita Cappock, her recent solo show Mise en scène, Part II (9 September 2022 – 8 January 2023) was displayed in our Sculpture Galleries, while its companion exhibition was presented at Highlanes Gallery, Drogheda.

Anatomy Room V (2022) is featured with Museum XXVI (2021), another painting by Eithne Jordan, in BODYWORK until 20 August.

The Arts House: Conor Tallon chats with curator Michael Waldron about a work from the Collection every Sunday morning on Cork’s 96FM and C103 Cork. You can listen back to this week’s chat here:

• Facebook
• Instagram
• Twitter