who we used to be | Virginia Mallon

Irish Americans, Fort Lee Irish Immigrants

Mallons (bottom) Rose, Jack, Charlie, Aloysius, Esther, William
(top) Harry, John Henry, and Frank six months after Charlie's and Aloysius's birth and their mother's, Bridge Smith's, death.

“There is no foreign land. It is the traveler only that is foreign.”

Robert Louis Stevenson

This photograph was the inspiration for a series in paint called who we used to be, a natural progression to a photo series titled bird on a wire, both reflecting on family secrets and intergenerational trauma.

The image, discovered in early 2021, revealed the ghosts of Irish American relatives I never knew existed. Their story began in the late 1800s, when an Irish immigrant family arrived on America’s shore fleeing the “Great Hunger” only to find themselves caught up in the violent end of the Civil War.

It is about a large family who lived hard, heartbreaking, and harrowing lives. Each generation plagued with trauma, abuse, death, and addiction. Although I did not know of their existence until 2021, I immediately recognized the faces of these ghosts as one of my own.

This body of work uses both traditional and not so traditional portraiture to come to terms with with a secret legacy growing from Celtic roots.