Visual Artists' News Sheet | November – December 2025

Critique

Alice Maher ‘The Sibyls’

Kevin Kavanagh Gallery

11 September – 11 October 2025

KEVIN KAVANAGH RECENTLY presented ‘The Sibyls’

by Alice Maher, comprising a series of five large-scale

drawings in charcoal, graphite and chalk. Four works,

Sibyl I-IV (2025), hang unframed, side by side as a

series with impressive scale (at 245 x 152cm each). The

subject of each drawing is a female nude or Sibyl, who

is engrossed in spewing and tending to a vast skein of

her own black hair that falls into untidy rolls, forming

misshapen, dense columns.

The Sibyls are drawn in simple outline, with minimal

rendering of anatomical form, while the hair is deeply

etched with trompe l’oeil definition, bursting with move-

ment and energy. The incongruity of weight and form

is both dynamic and devotional. Maher’s drawing skills

pack considerable force, most notably in the strange

light that leaks through the rolls of hair like stained

glass. The overall hanging arrangement and subdued

gallery lighting further create an oratory atmosphere.

On the floor in front of each Sibyl are four separate

sculpture pieces, Vox Sibyllae I-IV, comprising circular

black mirrors, upon which Maher has placed hand-

sized, nickel-plated, cast bronze ‘gobs’ of amorphous

material, like squished plasticine that a child might

discard.

The Sibyls were prophetesses in Greek civilisation

who, during the Renaissance, provided scandal-free

cover for the depiction of beautiful women, subjected

to the male gaze. Maher invests her Sibyls with com-

posed agency and enigmatic self-absorption that refus-

es the gaze of the viewer. They are entirely focussed on

themselves as they tend to their mounds of hair that

either obscure their faces or distract them away from

view. They casually hold their precarious positions on

pillars of hair that oscillate dramatically.

Narrative drawing forms part of Maher’s oeuvre,

which has consciously and effectively borrowed from

and paid homage to centuries of art history. Sibyl II

reclines sensually as Marie-Louise O’Murphy did in

Boucher’s La Blond Odalisque (1751); Sibyl IV could

be enjoying Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe (1863) by Manet;

while Sibyl I, in a casual display of strength and balance,

brings to mind Artemisia Gentileschi’s Judith, as she

slays Holofernes. Sibyl III is a familiar and recurring

character of Maher’s own creation – a sturdy young girl,

grounded in a deep connection to the land and spirit

world, capable and persistent under the weight of her

ungainly burden.

On the opposite wall, sadly, The Supplicant (160 x

110 cm) has fallen under the weight of her hair; she

is submerged with only her foot and outstretched

arms visible, her palms pressed together, and fingers

entwined, as if pleading or praying. No circular mirror

sits on the floor below her.

The juxtaposition of Vox Sibyllae I-IV directly in

front of each of the Sibyls I-IV results in an upside-

down reflection of each drawing in the mirror below.

These dark pools in the terrazzo floor have a strange

black patina that reflects the drawings perfectly, while

creating the illusion of bottomless depth, causing a

moment of sensory disorientation for the viewer that

even the silvery forms on their surfaces cannot break.

On the pristine white paper, the Sibyls are graceful,

metaphysical characters; however, in the mirrors, they

are inverted and distorted in a darkened underworld.

This duality is familiar within Maher’s broader practice,

conceptually fuelled by dichotomies, borderlines and transgressions. The “gobs of misunderstood language”1

transgress the grand mythical narratives of the Sibyls,

while providing a grounding in the bogs and fields,

playgrounds and encyclopaedias of our childhoods.

‘The Sibyls’ is a visually and intellectually compelling

exhibition that also serves as a sanctuary of contem-

plation.

Carissa Farrell is a curator based in Dublin.

1 Quote from a public conversation between Alice Maher and Jesse

Jones on 11 September at Kevin Kavanagh, Dublin.

[Top]: Alice Maher, Sibyl III, 2025, charcoal, graphite and chalk on Somerset satin white 410gsm paper 245 x 152 cm; image courtesy of the artist and Kevin Kavanagh.

[Bottom]: Alice Maher, ‘The Sibyls’, installation view, October 2025; photograph by Ros Kavanagh, courtesy of the artist and Kevin Kavanagh.