2025  January 23 – February 28

Ancestors is an exhibition of new paintings and works on paper by Kevin Mooney, which explores ideas of lost art legacies and alternative visual cultures. This body of work draws on diverse influences: the Irish diaspora and art history, as well as science fiction, mythology and horror. At the heart of Ancestors is the concept of hybridity: the merging of human, animal, and plant forms with deities, spiritual symbols and religious iconography. Mooney figures, disfigures and reconfigures these hybrid bodies, focussing on the flesh as a site of pain and trauma, but also of potentiality, radical transformation and transcendence. Mooney’s paintings are mostly on jute. This is a material made from natural fibres that for centuries has been associated with global trade, colonialism and emigration. This choice adds another layer to the exhibition, evoking themes of displacement and connection, while grounding the work in a material with its own rich, complicated history. Ancestors is Kevin’s first solo exhibition at Hillsboro Fine Art.