About

Born in Mayo, Liam McHale is a

Multi disciplinary artist currently completing his

BFA in Sculpture and Combined Media in the

Limerick School of Art and Design 2023. Liam has

been featured in multiple exhibitions in The

People’s Museum of Limerick, Hunt Museum,

and K-Fest as well as having a piece included on permanent display in the European Investment Banks headquarters as a part of their art collection in Luxembourg.

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Statement

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Liam McHales practice explores the rural Irish environment with a focus upon how queerness interacts, responds to and refuses estrangement to said environment. The rural as it stands is a hetero-normative space and is dictated by an unspoken masculine hegemonic narrative. Sexual citizenship in a rural sphere is granted to queer people based on a compromise, and acceptance of that compromise requires an accommodation to heterosexual standards which can lead to queer people becoming de-sexualised, de-politicized and disrupts the negation of sexual identity and limit their sexual citizenship. This implied accommodation to a set standard shows evidence to a form of a means test to acceptability and with that the embrace of citizenship. In rural places, a great rise in emigration towards urban centers has been observed, leaving the rural devoid of a queer voice. In response to this Liam, in his practice, is exploring both his rural Irish background and his queerness, exploring the often contrasting relationship between the two.

Seminal ideas for his practice have been informed through research that deals with queering the archives. It’s a process that looks through an expanded lens of queerness historically which seeks to negate from the non nuclear family, suggesting places in which queerness could of existed. Titles such as ‘’Temporary freedoms? Ethnoarchaeology of female herders at seasonal sites in northern Europe’’ have been influential and an interview held with Irish Artist Eimear Walshe.

He works through processes of casting, installation, film photography and sculpture to articulate these ideas.