Home Is Where The Heart Is

‘Home is Where the Heart is’ by Margaret Suggs: Oct-Dec 2022

Margaret Anne Suggs

The work in this exhibition started as a project for the ‘Agility Award’ for the Arts Council of Ireland. Margaret Anne set out to create ‘a series of experimental picture books’ based on the theme of HOME from an immigrant’s perspective. Taking inspiration from Sara Fanelli’s book ‘The Onion’s Great Escape’, these books took the form of five pop-up illustrated bird houses. The bird house shape relates to the ideas of migration, duality of belonging, and the possibly ephemeral nature of home.

The idea of ‘home’ is universal, but these works are rooted in the personal with each birdhouse relating to an aspect, or ‘home’, from Margaret Anne’s own life. Visitors were invited to take time to explore the pieces – the words, the images, and the forms – leaving them with a sense of hope.

Margaret Anne was raised in the American Deep South and being a dual citizen, has given her illustrations a cheerful colour palette and a distinct femininity. She serves as a Director for both Illustrators Ireland and IBBY Ireland and helps out annually with the Alliance Francaise Bandes Dessinées Festival. She also lectures part-time at Ballyfermot CFE, where she founded the illustration course. Mags was recently awarded an Arts Council Bursary for her pitcure book work on ‘The Dandelion’s Tale’. She is the illustrator for the Pigin of Howth series with Kathleen Watkins (Gill Books) and her most recent book is Holy Shocking Saints with Sine Quinn (Veritas). Margaret Anne lives in County Dublin, near the sea with her dashing husband, two amazing sons and a whiny cat. She can usually be found scribbling in a sketchbook.