Shadow V: Alex Monteith
In August 1979 an IRA bomb was detonated aboard the 30ft fishing boat Shadow V over the reefs of the Mullaghmore coast, Co. Sligo, Ireland. The blast claimed the lives of Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma (aged 79), Doreen (dowager) Lady Brabourne (83), Nicholas Knatchbull (14), and Paul Maxwell (15).
Since 1979, Mary Hornsey, mother of Paul Maxwell, a schoolboy who was working as a boat-hand aboard Shadow V when he was killed in the blast in the North Atlantic ocean; has written poems in memory of her only son.
The images for this exhibition were made at Mullaghmore by Alex Monteith during the most powerful storms in the winter of 2014-2015. Poetic text by Mary Hornsey is provided in consideration of these images.
Alex Monteith (b. 1977, Belfast, Ireland/NZ) has been making on-going series' of artworks in both Ireland and Aotearoa concerned with political and personal fissures associated with claims to territory and land.
Mary Hornsey's (formerly Maxwell) son Paul was killed Shadow V bombing. In her grief she wrote a series of poems. Monteith worked with Hornsey and selected the text components that contribute to this exhibition.
