Mick Flaherty

Merseyside based artist Mick Flaherty say’s about his work:

‘I am a multi-disciplinary artist who uses the creative process as a means of silencing the chatter of the monkey mind.

I believe that art can help one by-pass the rational analysis of the ego, allowing the creative mind to freely unravel and express the absurdity of oneself before the world.

As described in the psychoanalytical theories of Carl Jung, the creative process can be seen as an attempt to unravel the contents of one’s personal unconscious in a way that resembles the integration of one’s shadow. The underlying themes of my work encompass this theory, creating a dialogue of the subconscious in the surrealist sense of automation.

Forms that are suggestive of landscape, figures, and architecture arise from my work in a way that resembles the faint echo of a memory of a dream that one recalls upon reaching the waking state.

The work becomes the sensation of memory. A symbol of the impact of a particular emotional response, thought pattern, or deep-rooted belief system, that I like everyone else, carry around in a state that we are mostly unaware of.

As such my work becomes a means of transforming negatively held subconscious programming into a productive creative process, that stands before the viewer as a mirror to recognise the dimension of perception from where the work arises, and as to identify where their real true selves end and their thoughts and belief systems begin.’