Ireland and Mexico do not readily appear as intimate cultural and artistic bedfellows, but a closer look at both people’s histories reveals common stories, of loss and regeneration, of community and tradition, of hardship and emigration, and of home. Adding to this story is a young artist’s attempt to combine the artistic and visual histories of the two countries into one stylistic whole.

In every piece of Irishman Murray Aston’s work, we see a common thread – a bridging of the gap between Celtic and Mexican visual culture. Born in Dublin, Ireland, Murray’s bond to Mexico formed through successive visits to the country and a prolonged stay there over the last number of years, which both greatly influenced and gave birth to his distinctive style.

Murray’s work is driven by a desire to replicate the stories, images, icons and experiences, past and present, which form and shape the substance of the Irish and, as he sees it, the Mexican story. He presents so in fluid and colourful interchanges between line work, penmanship and design, culminating in a rich texture reflective of a shared, albeit newly-formed, landscape. Where subjects boast iconic regional values, here they assume renewed strength and depth, juxtaposed with this bright new landscape, screaming of a familiar idol in strange pastures.

There is an element of chaos-in-creation that remains ever-present in his pieces, as if the artist’s style, rugged and raw, was borne out of a violent confrontation between these two stylistic worlds. Here and there the styles mesh together in a unified, dignified, Celto-Mexican whole, before eventually unraveling and bleeding down the canvas in many of the runnels and offshoots characteristic of his work. This chaotic nature serves Murray well, as it gives each piece the impression of art-in-formation rather than a finished article, of being a fluid rather than a fixed image.

But above all, his signature style and mixed media compositions reflect strongly his love for Meso-American culture. Fluid line-work and intricate penmanship are some of his favorite distinctive forms and feature heavily in all of his pieces. And it is deep within the folds of penmanship that we find the real essence of Murray’s work.