‘When you are young these things seep into your brain’

It seems that Elena Duff’s search for her artistic voice has had a fairytale ending.

The splendid early April weather has given way to bleak midwinter on the day we meet in the cavernous Nomad coffee stop, close to Elena’s Bailieborough home. It’s the kind of place where no one bats a frozen eyelid at a woman lugging around enormous paintings of semi-mythic creatures.

It’s good to meet Elena on home territory, as the local landscapes and its stories pulsate beneath the acrylic and oils on the canvases for her forthcoming exhibition ‘The Old Gods’ in Cavan County Museum. Through her daily walks this area of Cavan has burrowed into Elena’s soul.

The theme for her exhibition was prompted by her residency at Townhall Arts Centre last summer, and her participation in a group project embracing poets and visual artists to celebrate Knockbride and its history. Elena’s contribution was a painting where a gold coloured border left the shape of the Corleck Head - Cavan’s most famous historic artefact - to dominate the centre. The interior of the three faced god was filled with a Hieronymous Bosch like flair - real subjects combine with fantastical creatures and landscapes, all detailed in bright colours.

Curator of Townhall gallery, Joe Keenan, suggested Elena paint two further versions to give all three faces their turn in the sun. The idea felt right.

Elena had her theme: “I’m going to do paintings inspired by all these lost beliefs, all our lost songs, myths and stories, which I feel when I’m out and about walking in the landscape - I feel them viscerally in the air - I guess the paintings are representative of that feeling rather than any specific story.”

And what of the gold borders?

“The gold around it was because our ancestors were sun worshippers,” explains Elena sipping a latte, “and I love a bit of gold.”

Persian miniatures and ancient Celtic manuscripts also feed into the work.

The Corleck Head, with its inscrutable gaze was found not far from Bailieborough. Once its significance was established by folklorist and historian Thomas Barron, it was dusted down and plonked on a plinth in the sterile air of Dublin’s National Museum.

“No one really knows who he is, but they think he was a god put on an altar,” explains Elena who describes the pictures within the shapes as “imagined scenes”. Viewers will be unable to resist building a narrative from them.

“They are not illustrating a specific story, they are more intuitive,” she says.

The Celt confesses to being left cold by the stony Corleck Head - and speculates it maybe had originally been painted to make it more engaging.

On one of her Corleck Head compositions Elena points out a little painted hole where one of the god’s three mouths should be.

“I was wondering what was in that? Was it a piece of straw, because that head was brought out every Lughnasa, and it was placed on the giant’s grave out near Skeagh Lough, so maybe it represents the sun god - Lugh?

“Did they put a sheaf of wheat in his head to represent the sun ripening the corn?

“We don’t know, it could have been painted. For all we know they could have put hair on it like a wig!”

Elena explains her fascination for the Corleck Head.

“It’s the three faces, and how one of those faces is very patently angry - it has a very low brow, it’s a face you wouldn’t want to mess with. But that leaves the two other faces: one has a beatific expression, and the other one seems okay as well. Are they three different people?

“It’s the mysteriousness it represents that intrigues me.”

Other works in the ‘Old Gods’ series have gold borders leaving the general shape of ancient stones, again filled with Elena’s own mythic scenes.

The exhibition ‘s centrepiece ‘Mac Tíre’ uses the Killycluggin Stone’s general shape.

The enormous stone was unearthed from West Cavan and is possibly linked to Celtic god Crom Cruach. According to legend, it was smashed by St Patrick in a flamboyant act of pagan god smiting or criminal damage- depending on your outlook. It’s now housed in Cavan County Museum, down the hall from where Elena’s work will be exhibited.

Our chat skirts over Cavan Burren’s giant slabs, the various standing stones and the incredible Relaghan Idol, discovered in Shercock. Elena is alive to this county’s heritage.

“I think it’s the mysteriousness of all of these things that Cavan is quite rich in, compared to other places. Even though I’m a blow-in to the county it inspires my imagination.”

Elena’s imagination lets loose for ‘Mac Tíre’, Irish for wolf.

“During my research there were wolves mentioned a lot. There was a pack of wolves who lived out the road, near where the Corleck Head was found. This was when Christianity had arrived - they had to put gravestones down flat over the graves because the wolves were digging up the bodies.”

The literal translation of ‘Mac Tíre’ - Son of the Land - tells you all you need to know about the importance of this noble creature to our forefathers.

“I wanted to paint a wolf like creature to express my sadness at how every inch of the land has been cultivated and that the last wolf was killed off in the 1700s and there are no forests for them to be reintroduced into.

“I guess that was why I wanted this big dramatic picture of a black wolf-like creature. But he’s not evil or scary because he’s part of the land, he’s part of all of us, he’s part of our heritage.”

The wolf looks regal as, serpent tongued, he consults with a human dignitary. The soft colours of the landscape, and clean lines combine for an upbeat composition.

“I have purposely showcased that more dreamy, beautiful feeling I get. You can nearly feel the weight of all our ancestors here going back thousands of years.

“I guess they are an idealised version of my imaginings of the past, rather than the battles and beheadings.”

The works evoke the beautifully illustrated collections of fairytales her mother gave her as a child. When she grew up, Elena and her mother continued to gift each other fairytale collections, and still do.

“I think when you are young these things seep into your brain and then pop out when you are older.”

The Celt wonders if this “full-on unashamedly decorative and whimsical” style is a new approach for Elena?

“For years I was trying to find the thing that I like to paint. And I tried everything - I did exactly what you are not supposed to do - I went off in a million different directions and couldn’t find it. I even painted landscapes and more traditional things. And then eventually I was like, I’m just not being true to myself, and what I’m interested in is fairytales, is mythology, is archaeology, is our history, is our old stories. I wanted to put that in the paintings and just go for it.”

Old Gods by Elena Duff will be launched at the Eden Gallery of Cavan County Museum, Ballyjamesduff, on Thursday May 1 at 7pm. The exhibition runs until May 26.