Limerick Ladies 

  Works

  Installations

  Resume

  Exhibitions

  Contact

  Links

     Limerick Ladies is a series of narrative, mixed-media paintings inspired by light-hearted limericks. The paintings are based on Irish girls' names and include elements of meaning, derivations and associations of the names. The genesis of the paintings came from Denise Falk's travels through Ireland, where she discovered that storytelling and folklore are central to Irish culture. Each painting incorporates a tale or legend associated with a specific city or monument in Ireland. The artist uses metaphor, symbolism and satire as embellishment. The paintings borrow from myths and gossip of the culture, reading like tour guides that incorporate flora and fauna and people of the region. The flowers in Burren, pink-cheeked children in Dingle, and fantastic goats and sheep of the Aran Islands are all featured.
     For the past 20 years, Falk has painted images of young girls and women in idealized milieux. She places her subjects in biographical settings and incorporates props or distinctive features that define their characters. Falk's inspiration is primarily drawn from role playing and the impromptu environments and dialogues that children create with dolls and found objects. She often uses recognizable images from history to jar recollections of the viewer's past, establishing connections with his or her childhood. Much of Falk's inspiration comes from paintings of women by men; she takes these images from history and inverts them, painting the scenes from a woman's perspective.