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Setting Free the Communion Dress by Miriam
McConnon Papageorgiou
The dream for the future expressed in Miriam
McConnon Papageorgiou’s large scale drawing
of her communion dress is one that is free from
the constraints of religion. The reality of this future
is that she must let go of some of her Irish Catho-
lic identity to move forward and embrace a new,
freer future. The communion dress is one of the
few possessions the artist took with her when she
left Ireland.As an Irish emigrant now living in Cy-
prus, the communion dress represents a time of in-
nocence for her – it is a link to her homeland and to
her childhood. The dress is suspended from a wire,
on which it appears displaced and vulnerable. The
artist has extended the pattern of the dress across
the surface of the canvas so it shimmers against
the background as a ghostly reminder of what she
once was, an earlier version of herself. Like many
modern Irish people who are trying to make sense
of the abuses committed by Catholic priests in Ire-
land and move on from them, she struggles to look
to a brighter future.
Miriam McConnon Papageorgiou was born in
1977 in Dublin, Ireland. In 2000 she completed
a post-graduate diploma at the Cyprus College of
Art, Lemba, and she now works at her studio in
Pafos. Miriam’s paintings can be found in public
and private collections in Ireland, Australia, the
USA, SouthAfrica and Cyprus.
Untitled by Dora Constantinou
“Fear and horror are depicted in the eyes of these
figures. These emotions go beyond the present;
they reflect the future. In other words, one can as-
sume the future is preordained by the present, a
present rife with uncertainty, environmental con-
cerns, moral decadence, socio-political and cultur-
al turmoil...a present that foretells a gloomy future.
Observing the figure at the window to the right,
we see this is no longer a human, that he/she finds
him/herself in transition. This could be attributed
to a need to adapt to new circumstances. The fig-
ure in the centre appears to be decomposing, in an
attempt to protect her children.At the last window,
to the left, we encounter a boy who seems to be
The Tree of Our Life, 2011, mixed materials, 110 x 90 cm -
Loukia Lazaridou
Setting Free the Communion Dress, 210cm x150cm,
charcoal on paper, MiriamMcConnon Papageorgiou, 2010