Meet Aosdána Member and 100-Year-Old Working Artist, Margaret 'MO' Irwin West
During the summer, Margaret showed her work in a joint exhibition at Oughterard Courthouse with her two children and her granddaughter. Here, she discusses her path to her current practise – from studying under the cubist André Lhote to teaching in NCAD – and the beauty of having a family with a shared creative spark.
Above, works by Margaret Irwin West
Place is extremely important to me. In my work, I use everything that’s around me. I’ve been living in Claddaghduff since 1991, and I’m inspired by my surroundings; the Early Christian and Prehistoric sites in the area. My work has always been based on observation.
In April, I turned 100 years old – and I simply can’t retire. When you are an artist, your spine kicks you in the back and says come on, you can do it, you can do it! Of course I’m a bit restricted now, I can’t see a tilde. But I can see enough to do charcoal drawings, and watercolours, and I love what I do.
My official name is Margaret Irwin West, but most people in Connemara know me as MO – big M, big O. I moved here after I retired from teaching in NCAD, where I was working in education, training young art teachers. That was fascinating to me, because it took me to all sorts of schools in the inner city and the surrounding areas.
I started my work very young, training under the landscape and portrait artist Lillian Davidson ARHA at just ten years old. Later, I studied under the cubist André Lhote, in Paris. It was as fantastic as you can imagine. Lhote’s way of teaching was very unique.
He would talk about the work as though it was alive, putting the first mark on a clean canvas and saying it was now a place of its own, and a place with places within it. Place is central to my understanding now. Even in portraits – which I don’t do myself – I see the character themself as a place.
My children have followed in my footsteps as artists, and I’m very proud of them, though I wouldn’t tell them that! To have had a show together, all four of us, means so much to me. We’ve got four different personalities, each inhabiting a different space.
We have this shared language, all of us. We’re very lucky, really.
Left: Ceramic work by Katharine West, Middle: Painting by Manon West, Right: Wood sculpture by Richard West
Katharine is an internationally-known sculptor who works primarily with clay. Richard is a woodturner and a sculptor of great originality. He made all of the pieces for this particular show from a fallen oak tree. Manon is a painter, and
has done residencies in Finland, Iceland, Sweden.
People ask if I inspired my children’s work, but I don’t think I have. I always made sure to bring them to exhibitions, and to galleries, and there were a lot of materials around the house. But they were all naturally, totally curious. Katherine as a toddler drew on every inside wall she could find. Richard made Marvel figures from plasticine. Manon was always painting!
I have a big studio under my house, with lots of natural light. Manon has been using it the most in the last few years. We have this shared language, all of us. We’re very lucky, really.
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