Caroline McCarthy
Extract:
Outside, Catalogue essay by Annie Fletcher, published by the Douglas Hyde Gallery, 1997
...Some say that after the instinct for survival, that the strongest human instinct is that of inclusion or belonging. A sense of security is in turn engendered by being able to fix our place in the world. All of the artists look at aspects of their surroundings but it is Caroline McCarthy who refers directly to the institutional setting in which her work is positioned. She also asks questions about being outside and an outsider in the physical sense of the word. Here she invades the space, it is a purposefully futile, frustrated act. It looks as though the invader insists on reminding us of his or her existence. McCarthy has launched an attack with all the heady anger and enthusiasm of the very young and naïve, from the ‘injun’ territory of the outside into the perceived peace and calm of the inner sanctum...