'Enormous honour': Longford artist makes history with French museum acquisition

BALLYMAHON artist Robyn Daly has become the first Irish photographer to have her work acquired by FAMM (Female Artists of the Mougins Museum), a museum in southern France dedicated exclusively to women artists.

Her self-portrait photograph, The Chemistry of Me, has entered the prestigious Levett Collection, which forms part of FAMM’s holdings spanning centuries of art history.

The museum’s photography collection includes works by Lee Miller, Nan Goldin and Cindy Sherman, three of the most influential figures in modern and contemporary photography. Through their experimental approaches to the female body, identity and representation, these pioneering artists have expanded the possibilities of the photographic medium.

Ms Daly’s inclusion places her work alongside artists who have fundamentally changed how photography can represent the human experience.

“I was deeply moved when my work entered the collection,” she said. “Christian Levett is one of the leading collectors and advocates for women’s art, and someone I respect enormously.

“By founding FAMM, a museum dedicated entirely to women artists, he is helping to rewrite an art history that has marginalised or overlooked some of its greatest talents. Artists such as Lee Krasner, whose extraordinary achievements were long overshadowed by those of her husband, Jackson Pollock, are finally receiving the recognition their work merits.

“To have my own art included in a collection alongside artists such as Krasner, Frida Kahlo and so many other extraordinary women is an enormous honour.”

Born in South Africa and of Irish heritage, Ms Daly moved to Ireland in 2020 and now lives in a 1920’s farmhouse outside Ballymahon. The house, with its weathered interiors and distinctive architectural features, has become central to her artistic practice and is the setting for much of her photography.

“Moving to Ballymahon was really transformative for me,” explained Ms Daly. “I started to discover the neglected, derelict and abandoned farmhouses around the area, and began photographing in them. Those spaces opened up a new way of thinking about the relationship between our bodies and the places we inhabit.”

Her work combines photography and performance to develop new ways of representing the female form. Using long exposures and choreographed movement, she makes visible aspects of the human body that cannot ordinarily be perceived by the naked eye.

The Chemistry of Me is a self-portrait created using this approach.

“I’d read an article in Scientific American about a project that was creating a chemical map of the human body, and it resonated with my thinking that we are more than just physical matter — we are chemistry. We talk about having chemistry with people, about body chemistry, and I wanted to express that as something expansive: that who we are is more than just what can be seen,” she said.

The work forms part of Ms Daly’s ongoing artistic inquiry into embodiment, perception and pushing the possibilities and potential of photography.

Robyn Daly is represented by Aperio Gallery, an online contemporary art gallery showcasing Irish and international artists. Her photography, including The Chemistry of Me, can be viewed at aperiogallery.com.

Closer to home, Ms Daly is preparing for a first solo exhibition, Longford Ladies: Resisting Arrest, opening at Edgeworthstown Library on December 1. Supported by Longford County Council through its Arts Project funding, the exhibition will feature a selection of photographic works created in Ballymahon and Edgeworthstown.