Alicia Reyes McNamara produced their recent series of paintings and works on paper after researching Mexican and Irish mythology and in particular the recurrence of water myths within those two discourses. McNamara was struck by how many times feminine goddesses were a central part of these myths, yet were largely presented as fallen figures, who had been punished or condemned for their hyper-sexuality or acts that defied the prevailing order.
Often these female mythological figures would lose their lives in water and then become associated with that stretch of water. For instance, according to Irish poetry, the River Shannon in Ireland is named a woman called Sinaan, who was drowned after seeking to know and make known the secrets of a hidden well, that rose up, consumed her and became the river. Meanwhile in Mexican mythology the water goddess Chalchiuhlicue cries tears of blood for 52 years, drowning the world in the process. Reyes McNamara's works reclaims the subject-hood of these female figures in the mythologies of the two cultural backgrounds she grew up between. Instead she presents these supposed fallen figures as agents in charge of their surroundings rather than fallen or mourned figures. They are seen giving back something to the water that surrounds them, feeding odd-looking amphibian creatures, or morphing into other creatures.
