The focus of Maeve Hitchen’s work touches on themes of terrorism, grief, compassion and certainly fear. The artist explores certain aspects of historic events where attacks were made against civilians and innocent people lost their life. Images of 9/11, the Troubles in Northern Ireland, ISIS attacks in Paris and London and the current trouble in Palestine and Syria are published and forgotten about the following day. The generation we live in, people are unaware of what is going on in countries such as Israel, Syria and in majority of cases; we tend to ignore the trouble or violence we see on the news.
The artist explores the existential crisis allowing people to come face to face with images from violent historical events, recall them and think about those innocent lives lost. By altering the colour and minimalizing the detail in each, these harsh images like depictions from 9/11 and Syria. They become more appealing to our senses allowing viewers to be drawn in to remember such events and gives those affected the attention and respect they deserve. Maeve Hitchen’s work implicates the viewer to observe and make their own connections.