Maria McKinney

Visual Arts

2021-2022

About Maria McKinney’s commission

" For The Dock Commission, I will collaborate with a writer Tara McEvoy to expand on my current research into the Irish Moiled, one of Ireland's four remaining native cattle breeds. Also affectionately referred to as the Moilie of Maol, these cattle developed in the Drumlin Belt that sweeps across South Ulster and North Connaught. Working with farmers who have elected to keep the Moal in this specific terrain, I am developing a creative response that considers the relationship between the shaping of these bovine bodies and the topography of the land that they and their predecessors grazed upon. Further questions arise in relation to the expanse between human and geologic time, as well as genetic selection based upon Viking folklore. Longer term outcomes will be sculptural and video work." Maria McKinney

Commissioned essay by Tara McEnvoy in response to Maria McKinney art practice:
Cattle Tara Mc Envoy

About the Artist(s)

Maria McKinney’s practice involves responding to context. For the past few years, she has been making work about agriculture and cattle breeding in particular. This has crossed over into research about the ongoing and deepening understanding of genetics, how this is being applied, and the wider societal implications. Her work has led her to engage directly with farmers and geneticists to create work in relation to what they do. She uses different media in her practice though is primarily driven by sculptural impulses. In the last few years, the objects she has been making are completed when worn on a body. This approach is further tested as interventions in live agricultural events. She uses photography and video to document these moments of coalescence between body and sculpture. The materials McKinney chooses to work with are selected because of their typical function in the world. She devises a process of interacting with the material, frequently with some type of handcraft approach. Using her hands to make has always been an important aspect of her practice - when engaging with people outside the studio to develop a project this acts as a kind of gesture towards them and what they do and a means of opening up communication.

Maria McKinney combines hand-craft with response to context. Her practice reflects on the wider societal implications brought about by developments in agriculture and genetic research. She is winner of the Golden Fleece Award 2021 and later this year will realise Totem Yokes, a project that reflects on farming in Wexford as part of an M11 per cent for art commission. Her project Sire commissioned by The Wellcome Trust was produced in collaboration with scientific researchers in UCD and Teagasc and has been exhibited Internationally, including at The Wellcome Collection (London, UK), The Museum of English Rural Life (Reading, UK), The RHA (Dublin), Sunderland Museum (UK), Pace University Gallery (New York, USA), and The Gregg Museum and North Carolina State University Genetic Engineering and Society Centre (NC, USA). Further recent commissions include the National Museum of Ireland – Country Life and The European Commission Joint Research Centre Science Hub, Italy, subsequently exhibited at Bozar, Brussels. Her work is part of public and private collections, including the Arts Council of Ireland, the Museum of English Rural Life (Reading UK), Europol, the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, the Office of Public Works and Bank of Ireland.

Tara McEvoy is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Trinity College Dublin and for 2022 is a Ciaran Carson Writing and the City Fellow at Queen's University Belfast. She co-founded and edits The Tangerine, a Belfast-based magazine of new writing. Her work has appeared in publications including the Times Literary Supplement, Frieze, Vogue, Poetry London, 3:AM, and the Stinging Fly.