Úna
Cahill

The Great Performance

In Úna’s work, she is creating a narrative developed from her studies of queer theory and gender performativity. Building from imagery of a heteronormative couple dancing, Úna has translated them into a gender-neutral couple, considering Judith Butler’s theory of the ‘psychic excess’. This is the charge or excess from the unconscious which unsettles what we can perform, such as our identity, subjectivity, and gender. The use of a repetitive print and painting these figures in blues charges the paintings with translucency to give sensitivity to the subject of how our sexuality comes from the authentic realm of our unconscious. This makes sexuality unsettling to us, as we cannot perform this part of ourselves to a level that our society demands.