Super at 60 inspires photo show

ARTIST Maureen McKeown recently held her first solo exhibition at Gracefield Arts Centre.

Created using a variety of methods including dry-point printmaking, watercolour and gouache, her showcase at Gracefield ‘Sixty and Beyond: Becoming Visible’ focused on women over 60, who she said have ‘too often been rendered invisible within contemporary British culture’.

Maureen, who lives in New Abbey, created a portrait of each women with the aim of capturing their resilience and vitality. Among her subjects were friends, family members, as well as members of the WASPI movement.

She explained: “I wanted to focus on women in their 60s because it tends to be that when you reach that point you tend to be forgotten about, but these women are still inspiring and have each have their own unique stories.

“One of the women, Dawn, is a black belt in karate and had been teaching for many years, but when the state pension age was raised she couldn’t retire and felt she was too old to continue teaching, so shifted her career to teach gentle movement full-time.

“Another woman, Margaret, ran a post office for about 30 years and was very well known in the New Abbey area, but she sadly passed away before the exhibition opened and never got to enjoy her retirement, so I’m hoping to donate her picture to the village hall in tribute.”

Also featured was Maureen’s own self portrait which depicts her as a witch, Although she doesn’t practice witchcraft, Maureen felt it added something to the collection of portraits. She said: “It’s actually based off a photograph taken one Halloween when I was dressed as a witch, and when I began putting the exhibition together I thought it would make a good addition because witches are usually depicted as older women and I thought it was quite a powerful statement.”

Now with her first portrait exhibition under her belt, Maureen is excited to explore other subjects and mediums through her art, with her next exhibition coming after the new year.

She added: “I was very proud when people wanted to buy my portraits from Gracefield, but that wasn’t the idea behind it, so I’ll be giving them away as presents.

“My next exhibition will be at the Usual Place, I’ll continue to do some small portraits, but I’d like to do more painting, looking to the environment for inspiration, as printing can be quite a slow laborious process. But I’m excited that I get to continue to showcase my art locally.”