THE SECRET GARDEN gets its’ name from the book of the same name, much loved by the artist as a young child. 

The theme of this exhibition looks to how we create our own ‘Secret Garden’ to cope with life when living through a trauma as we have recently done with the Covid Pandemic. How do we tackle these challenges? What are the resultant actions, if any? For this show the artist found herself working more intuitively...not wanting to, or indeed, able to work to plan, taking it/life moment by moment. Walking. Talking, Meditating. Dancing.  Cooking. Sewing. Painting, layers of painterly textures, collage and further processes involving scraping, sanding, collating and drawing on memories and capturing some of those precious moments in time. And when she wasn’t painting she could be found with a crochet hook in her hand making ‘granny squares’ with a knowing that they were part of this journey. That they should form a ‘cocoon’ seemed only right and even cathartic. Many were worked whilst she was in isolation, often on her own, during the past two years. This piece is intended to be meditative, peaceful and even to generate a smile or two! 

 With her installation ‘What’s black and white and red all over’ written in pink is an amused take on the joke….answers on a post-it!   It represents her love of books and reading but the frustration of not having the concentration to read during the lockdowns.  This whole body of work became a salve to for this artist’s soul and she hopes it is for yours also. 

SIOBHAN COX-CARLOS is a visual artist based in her native Strokestown, Co. Roscommon. She is holds a BA.honours degree in Fine Art from Limerick College of Art & Design (2004). Her practice centres around her exploration of the painterly process. 

She is a founding member of a newly formed international art group, Global ARTelier21 (launching next week). 

Her work has been exhibited in Ireland and internationally and is held in many collections all over the world and in public collections here in Ireland including Roscommon County Council Civic Collection, OPW State Art Collection, National Cancer Screen Service (for which she was awarded a % for Art Scheme in 2010), Holles Street National Maternity Hospital, Dublin Website: 

Websites: https://www.siobhancoxcarlos.com 

https://www.globalartelier.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/siobhan_cox_carlos https://www.instagram.com/globalARTelier21