ATHENAEUM HOTEL'S ARTIST IN RESIDENCE
Wednesday 25 November 2009
Mailo Power is a very interesting Waterford based artist who, along with her husband Stan, owns and runs the Athenaeum House Hotel on the banks of the river Suir. Mailo is 49 and for over twenty years has been an interior designer, with Great Southern Hotels and Radisson Hotels being amongst her clients. She was, of course, also responsible for the cool striking décor in the Athenaeum Hotel. Mailo’s interest in art was awakened when given a gift for her Holy Communion by the “local sweet shop lady, Mrs Doyle”, of a print of Raphael’s Madonna and Child in a small wooden frame. It was Mailo’s first introduction to the Old Masters and she has the little round print to this day. When she reached senior school she was given great encouragement by a teacher, “Miss Dolan”, who first remarked on her love of colours and the fact that she wasn’t afraid to use them in her paintings.
Life moves on and Mailo married Stan when she was 19. They moved to England, Stan working in the Hotel industry and Mailo building an Interior Design Business and raising a family, which left little time for art. In 2000 whilst recovering from an operation she read a book “The Work We Were Born To Do” by Nick Williams, in which he says “whatever you loose all track of time doing, that is the work you were born to do”. She knew she wanted to study art and enrolled immediately in Waterford Institute of Technology to take a Diploma on a full-time course in Art and Technology graduating with honours in 2004. She did a further year graduating in 2005 with a B.A. (Hons) in Art and Society. She was awarded Student of the Year for Humanities. She then spent two years flying over and back two days a week to Gloucestershire University from which she graduated in 2007 with an M.A. in Fine Art. That is true dedication.
Mailo says that with this newly rejuvenated passion, and advice of fellow artist and mentor, Andrew Bick, she has found the confidence to do what she does. She has always had an intense preoccupation with everyday life. Her vibrant paintings depict “everyday people and situations handled in a straightforward, realistic almost childlike manner”. With a passion too for sport, she has a striking painting of four racing cyclists from the rere! Another features a couple quietly having brunch, again just being observed from behind in a gentle way. I love her painting of colurful Lowryesque people strolling along the front in Tramore. Mailo says that, at 49, she has begun to define herself as an artist, which sort of defies the notion that creativity is only the province of the young. She says her life is an example for people to understand that creativity is a lifelong promise.
For information on artwork and commissions, Mailo Power can be contacted at mailo@iol.ie and 087 259-9251