“Housewife with a Hobby” 2025

"She stayed home and made trouble……..

Housewife with a Hobby

“She stayed home and made trouble.”

Solo Show - Ferement Gallery Dubai 2025

Housewife with a Hobby was created entirely within the confines of the artist’s home, but it is anything but confined. In a world that so often asks women to stay small quiet in ambition, soft in defiance, domestic in scale this body of work pushes back. It reflects on the intersection of identity, legitimacy, and the gendered architecture of creative industries. The show emerged during a period of transition across countries, careers, and a shift in social role. 

Through vivid, layered abstraction, Housewife with a Hobby reclaims the domestic not as a retreat, but as a site of practice. These works challenge the perception that art made at home particularly by women is mere pastime. Instead, they speak to the resilience it takes to make intentional work outside the boundaries of traditional art institutions.

Each title is a small crack in the familiar. Some are absurd, others tender, for example: House Bra, Bleach, Mop, Dodgy Box, Cock Roaches. These are not domestic objects as much as emotional landmarks. All operate as quiet acts of resistance, hinting at cultural friction, financial precarity, boredom, and bursts of rebellion.

Kirwan’s approach to colour is intuitive, physical, and deeply sensory. Like baking without a recipe, her process involves mixing, folding, layering trusting her hands and eyes to know when it's done. Colours are tested, sometimes clashing, sometimes harmonising. The surface of each canvas becomes a kind of kitchen counter: stained, unpredictable, productive. There is joy in the making. But also hunger for connection, recognition, autonomy. Housewife with a Hobby invites viewers to reconsider the porous boundaries between work and home, labour and love, legitimacy and perception. It is a body of work shaped by presence, not permission a visual assertion of what it means to create a life and a practice beyond the roles we are assigned.

Rooted 2025

Rooted - Bayt al Mamzar Dubai

As part of Ramadan 2025, I created and hosted a unique vegetarian Iftar at Bayt Al Mamzar, Dubai’s leading hub for creative and cultural exchange. This project explored the intersection of food, heritage, and storytelling, blending Emirati and Irish traditions through a plant-based culinary experience.

The Iftar featured a curated menu that combined locally sourced Emirati produce with Irish oats and dairy, infused with Middle Eastern spices. Each dish was designed to reflect the values of hospitality, nourishment, and cultural continuity, while emphasizing the shared symbolism of food in both Ramadan and Irish tradition.

Coinciding with St. Patrick’s Day, the Iftar brought together a diverse community to reflect on generosity, sustainability, and the unifying power of food. All ingredients were ethically sourced and traceable, reinforcing the project’s environmental commitment and deep connection to land and identity.

This Iftar functioned as both a communal ritual and an artistic intervention, using the format of a shared meal to facilitate cross-cultural dialogue and connection.

  البحث عن التوازن

Battle for Balance

Sikka Festival Dubai February 2024

Battle for Balance, a reflective installation exploring the tension between environmental preservation and the relentless pursuit of profit in our fast-paced, consumption-driven world. Central to the work is a repurposed daybed, crafted from waste materials and reimagined as a symbol of stillness, rest, and mindful slowing down. Through this piece, the aim is to spark dialogue, evoke emotion, and encourage a more conscious relationship with the world around us. The body of work was shown during Sikka Festival Dubai.

"Dumb is Fun"

HARPERS BAZZAR ARABIA

CRACKED

New collection of CRACKED available exclusively through Art Jameel

11 Woodfire x MC Kirwan

SENSES 2.0.

Mary Claire and Chef Akmal Anuar have collaborated to create “Senses 2.0”. The body of work will live in harmony amongst the taste, sounds and life of 11 Woodfire Jumeriah Dubai.

The series of paintings have been inspired by how our five senses seem to work independently, when in reality, they come together to enable us to truly experience our surroundings.

Sight, Sound, Taste, Touch, and Smell have a profound impact on our everyday lives and our wider connection to the world. From our survival to our indulgences. Our senses must regularly meet and greet in the brain to provide impressions of the world.

The collaboration contributes to the diners sensory experience and journey at 11 Woodfire.

MaryClaires art practice thrives from collaboration and human connection to create and celebrate.

Lets Do London Better - London Underground Public Art

Curation Laura Nevill Studio 2021